File 2043. - Written at Board of Trade, Whitehall Gardens, S.W. The Port of London has turned out to be 'a crowning mercy' ...,

Written at Board of Trade, Whitehall Gardens, S.W. The Port of London has turned out to be 'a crowning mercy'. There is much enthusiasm in the press. The comments in the Globe, 'a wild Tory paper'. The article by 'Calchus' in the Fortnightly Review. Campbell-Bannerman's condition. Has discussed with Asquith the appointment of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury; John Burns presents 'a real difficulty'. Ellis Jones Ellis-Griffith 'walked with me all the way home to Cheyne Place last night through the rain without an umbrella to beg me to help him to get an undersecretaryship! I felt a real compassion for him that he should be driven to do this. I told him the real difficulty - that he had never made the best of his abilities - & that S.T.'s elevation made it all the more difficult'.