How Japanese orders sustained British detonator production

If the Royal Navy had bought Japanese detonators after rejecting German ones, would that have accelerated British improvements before the First World War?

The trade largely ran the other way: Japanese demand helped keep Britain's detonator industry active because German naval components were too costly to import.

Japan was an important customer for British-made detonator components, reversing the premise that Britain might simply have bought Japanese examples. Krupp could serve land-artillery markets in East Asia, but shipping German naval-shell detonators to Japan was extremely expensive. British and American suppliers were therefore the practical alternatives. Export demand and transport costs could preserve a strategically important munitions industry.