BRITAIN AND JAPAN Sts,—With reference to The Spectator's attitude towards
the British- Japanese Alliance of 1902 it may be of interest to record that about that time I heard a story to the effect that when the draft Treaty was submitted to King Edward it came back with the marginal comment " This does not meet with ray approval."
I have no recollection of the source of the story and no knowledge as to its authenticity, but it would be of interest to know if it was widespread and if anyone can say whether or no it was apocryphal.
[This seems hardly likely. To a dispatch from the British Embassy at Tokyo to Lord Lansdowne (June, 1901), discussing the project of an Anglo-Japanese alliance, King Edwara appended the minute: " The King considers it most essential that we should give Japan our hearty support on all occasions when it is possible to do so." (Gooch and Temperley, Vol. II, p. 92).—ED., The Spectator.]
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