ABSTRACT
In December 1902, a storm brewed in Japan’s national parliament, the Diet. At issue was naval expansion. A parliamentary wrangle over naval appropriation was nothing new for Japan. Throughout the early sessions of parliament but particularly the Second Session of Parliament (November 1891 to December 1891), the Third Session of Parliament (May to June 1892), and the Fourth Session of Parliament (November 1892 to March 1893), naval expansion and how to pay for it were the issues of contention.1 Ten years later, parliamentarians again argued over how to finance the navy’s request, coming on the heels of 213 million yen worth of naval expansion carried out between 1896 and 1902.2 But parliamentarians and press reporters who witnessed the 1902 debate heard one new phrase that had not entered the earlier budgetary struggle: Nichi-Ei dômei (the Anglo-Japanese Alliance).3
