ABSTRACT
THE BRITISH PRESS—the only significant medium of mass communication in the alliance years (1902–1923), was then a very different phenomenon from today. Not only were local and provincial newspapers still important commentators on national and international events, but the popular daily press was less pictorial, more literate and less frivolous than in the early twenty-first century. Consequently a comprehensive study of the British press's treatment of Japan and the alliance during two decades would be an enormous undertaking. This brief paper is far less ambitious, It is based upon some sampling of local and national dailies and magazines, with particular emphasis on The Times and The Economist, and such satirical and illustrated magazines as Punch or The London Charivari, The Graphic and The Illustrated London News. However, none of these publications were mass circulation dailies or weeklies. 1 Despite this caveat one can detect several major themes and features from such a limited survey.
