The Chamberlain government committed to spending £10 million pounds in support of threatened nations in November 1938, but the bill authorising the spending was not passed until February 1939, of which the largest sum, £3 million, went to China, and in the Balkans £2 million pounds went to Greece and £1 million pounds to Romania. In a letter on 24 November, he mentioned that he just returned from the Balkans "to see what could be saved in the Balkans from the Nazis", an allusion to the recent tour of Balkans by German Economics Minister Dr Walther Funk, who pressed for greater economic integration of the region with the German Reich. Acting in his own capacity, Lloyd urged that the directors of the firm Spencer Limited to build grain silos in Romania, as Carol had mentioned during his visit to London that Romania's ability to export wheat was hindered by the lack of grain silos. In January 1939, Lloyd advised Gafencu, who just been appointed Romanian Foreign Minister, to appoint someone of "considerable energy and position" to be the Romanian minister in London, which led to Tilea receiving the appointment. After King Carol, the Balkan leader to whom Lloyd was closest was Prince Paul, the Regent of Yugoslavia for the boy King Peter II. Working with a fellow member of the board of the Navy League, Lord Sempill, who had served as the deputy chairman of the London Chamber of Commence in 1931–1934, Lloyd sought from January 1939 onward to encourage British businesses to buy many products from the Balkans as possible. Lord Semphill had once been an enthusiast for Nazi Germany and had joined the Anglo-German Fellowship, but he was described as being "impressed by Lloyd's propaganda efforts and wanted to back them with specific business arrangements". In February 1939, he visited Athens to meet the Greek dictator, General Ioannis Metaxas, in an effort to improve Anglo-Greek relations. In a bid to "soften the dictatorship", Lloyd arranged for greater British Council involvement with the National Youth Organisation, which he believed would allow the British Council to win over Greek public opinion. During his visit to Athens, Lloyd also advised King George II to dismiss a Germanophile, Metaxas, as prime minister and to appoint an Anglophile as his successor, which the king refused. Lloyd made clear during his Greek visit his personal preference for Venizelism and met several Venizelist Greek politicians,