Maurice, but this does not indicate whether he was the messenger or equally taken by surprise. He also became editor of Lloyd's Weekly in 1924. Whatever the loss of independence did to the Chronicles credibility, its sales did not suffer under the new management. The editorial staff were not unduly interfered with, it seems. Rather, the paper suffered at the hands of corporate finance. After Lloyd George ceased to be prime minister in 1922, he remained active in politics for the rest of the 1920s. His fall from power marked the end of the Liberal Party as a majority government but that was not apparent at the time. He needed money to back candidates but this time his idea of selling honours was thwarted by the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925. He had a valuable asset in the form of United Newspapers, owner of the Chronicle and other Lloyd publishing interests. He had bought off his fellow investors in 1922 and 1926, presumably at the 1918 valuation or thereabouts. He was sole owner in the sale contract. The question of whether the party should not benefit too caused some controversy at the time. On 11 July 1927, Lloyd George sold the company to three investors who were rich but lacking experience of publishing, let alone newspapers. They paid him £2.9m. On 17 July 1928, a year and a week later, the three sold the company for £1.5m. The first of these sales contained a curious clause that preserved Lloyd George's editorial control without responsibility for its liabilities. He was granted a 10-year option to buy back the shares if the Chronicle or Lloyd’s Weekly failed to follow progressive Liberal policies or promoted reactionary or communist views. This was endorsed by the next owner despite his allegiance to the Conservative Party. He was William Harrison, an entrepreneur who had acquired a number of magazines and provincial newspapers. He had also gone into paper-making through Inveresk Paper Co and that now owned the former Lloyd newspapers. In the 1929 crash, Inveresk's share price fell 80%. Harrison left the scene. An audit then showed that the Chronicle owed £3m in debt and commitments, had no cash and was suffering a marked loss of sales. It looked doomed. However, News and Westminster Ltd, a Cadbury company, offered to take the Chronicle on and merge it into the Daily News to create the News