ABSTRACT
DESPITE THE EVER-MOUNTING POLITICAL DIFFICULTIES, OUR SOCIAL LIFE up to this time had been both agreeable and interesting. \Ve were able to see our Japanese friends and acquaintances with reasonable freedom, although politics was usually eschewed as a topic of conversation. Our normal contacts were necessarily with the more liberal elements in Japanese life, because, generally speaking, they alone had travelled, knew the world outside Japan and showed any disposition to consort with foreigners. But in point offact I also had many acquaintances amongst the extremists, whether in naval, military or civil life. Such acquaintanceships had to be cultivated with great caution if only because a certain degree of xenophobia was part and parcel of the militarist stock-in-trade. The last thing most of them wanted was any publicity for their meetings, social or otherwise, with the British Ambassador.
