Could Japan afford a capital-ship race against G3 and N3?

Could Japan afford to build ships large enough to compete in a world where the British G3 and N3 classes entered service?

Japanese leaders might have attempted it politically, but the cost could have broken the Japanese economy.

A British N3 with 18-inch guns would move the benchmark that Japan's next battleship had to meet or exceed. The political will to continue might still have existed, especially in a prestige-driven naval competition. The financial base was the limiting factor: sustaining such a response would have been deeply problematic and might have broken the Japanese economy. The exchange separates the ability to draw a larger design from the ability to fund a fleet program around it.