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3.

There were obvious difficulties in doing this, but it was arranged
between him and Mr. Baldwin that I should do the work privately, as
I had been doing for some time for Mr. Baldwin himself. That was my
status for nearly eighteen months - the whole thing being kept, of
course, very private. It was not a satisfactory arrangement, for
though I was able to help Mr. Macdonald in many aways personally, my
relations to the different Government Departments had always to be
very delicate and difficult.

I constantly impressed both upon Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Macdonald
the necessity of the reconstruction of the P.M.'s office in the
direction of something like a chef du cabinet. Even in Britain, with
a large and highly competent Civil Service to draw upon, and with
the enormous asset of Sir Maurice Hankey, there was apt to be a good
deal of confusion, and the Prime Minister had to do a great deal of
unnecessary work himself, and often was kept in the dark about quite
vital matters.

2.

Suggestions for a Chef du Cabinet.

The folowing notes are only the most modest suggestions
because I am not yet fully informed about the details of Canadian
administration. Here you have no Hankey as a permanent reservoir of
knowledge, and you have not a sufficiently developed Civil Service
to make it easy to second the right people when you want them. The
task of the Prime Minister too, is in some ways heavier, for he is
himself the head of the Department of External Affairs. It seems to
me that he needs a permanent principal assistant of a very special