Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook Exchequer), rewarded Aitken with a peerage and, briefly, a Cabinet post as Minister of Information. Post-war, the now Lord Beaverbrook concentrated on his business interests. He built the "Daily Express" into the most successful mass-circulation newspaper in the world, with sales of 2.25 million copies a day across Britain. He used it to pursue personal campaigns, most notably for tariff reform and for the British Empire to become a free trade bloc. Beaverbrook supported the government of Stanley Baldwin and that of Neville Chamberlain throughout the 1930s and was persuaded by another long standing political friend, Winston Churchill, to serve
Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook and the firm's general manager. Under the tutelage of Stairs, who would be his mentor and friend, Aitken engineered a number of successful business deals and was planning a series of bank mergers. Stairs' unexpected early death in September 1904 led to Aitken acquiring control of the company and moving to Montreal, then the business capital of Canada. There he bought and sold companies, invested in stocks and shares and also developed business interests in both Cuba and Puerto Rico. He started a weekly magazine, the "Canadian Century" in 1910, invested in the "Montreal Herald" and almost acquired the "Montreal