he was playing a major role in writing parts of the Finance Bill, the Development Bill, the Shop Hours Bill, and the Coal Mines Bill, and he was responsible for the passage through parliament of the National Insurance Act 1911. He had a mediocre record as a candidate by losing more often than winning. He was re-elected in West Ham North in January 1910 and in December 1910. However, after the second election a petition was filed to unseat him on the grounds of an unlawful return of election expenses, and this proved successful. In July 1911, Masterman was returned to Parliament at a by-election in the Bethnal Green South West constituency. He joined the Privy Council in 1912, and in 1914 obtained his most important position, an appointment to the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. However, the law at that time required him to recontest his seat in a by-election on joining the Cabinet. Masterman lost his own seat in February and then in May stood in a by-election at Ipswich, losing yet again. He resigned from the government as a result. Wartime propagandist In the summer of 1914, Masterman strongly supported British entry into the First World War and was soon appointed as head of the War Propaganda Bureau (WPB), known as "Wellington House." His Bureau enlisted the eminent writers John Buchan, H. G. Wells, and Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as the painters Francis Dodd and Paul Nash. Before its abolition in 1917, the Bureau published some 300 books and pamphlets in 21 languages, distributed over 4,000 propaganda photographs every week, and circulated maps, cartoons and lantern slides to the media. Masterman also commissioned films about the war such as The Battle of the Somme, which appeared in , while the battle was still in progress, as a morale-booster. It received a generally favourable reception. The Times reported on 1916, "Crowded audiences ... were interested and thrilled to have the realities of war brought so vividly before them, and if women had sometimes to shut their eyes to escape for a moment from the tragedy of the toll of battle which the film presents, opinion seems to be general that it was wise that the people at home should have this glimpse of what our soldiers are doing and daring and suffering in Picardy." A major objective of his department was to encourage the