there. In 1913 the house was offered as a venue for negotiations between Bonar Law and the Prime Minister, H.H. Asquith, over Ulster and Irish home rule. Later in life Aitken wrote about his early political efforts: Aitken continued to grow his business interests while in Parliament, and also began to build a British newspaper empire. After the death of Charles Rolls in 1910, Aitken bought his shares in Rolls-Royce Limited, and over the next two years gradually increased his holding in the company. However, Claude Johnson, Rolls-Royce's Commercial managing director, resisted his attempt to gain control of the company, and in October 1913 Aitken sold his holding to James Buchanan Duke of the American Tobacco Company. In January 1911 Aitken secretly invested £25,000 in the failing Daily Express. An attempt to buy the Evening Standard failed, but he did gain control of another London evening paper, The Globe. In November 1916 a share deal worth £17,500, with Lawson Johnson, landed Aitken a controlling interest in the Daily Express, but again he kept the deal secret. First World War Due to the outbreak of the First World War, Aitken was able to show off his great organisational skills. He was innovative in the employment of artists, photographers and film makers to record life on the Western Front. Aitken also established the Canadian War Memorials Fund, which evolved into a collection of art works by the premier artists and sculptors in Britain and Canada. In accordance with establishing these works, he also was instrumental in creating the Canadian War Records Office in London and arranged for stories about Canadian forces appearing in newspapers. His visits to the Western Front, with the honorary rank of colonel in the Canadian Army, resulted in his 1916 book Canada in Flanders, a three-volume collection that chronicled the achievements of Canadian soldiers on the battlefields. Aitken also wrote several books after the war, including Politicians and the Press in 1925 and Politicians and the War in 1928. At a time when censorship was extremely strict with British journalists being kept away from the Western Front, Aitken's ‘Eyewitness’ reports from the Western Front, which were published in the Canadian newspapers made him famous. Aitken became increasingly hostile towards the British Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, whom he considered to be mismanaging the war effort. Aitken's opinion of Asquith did not improve when he failed to get a