Harold Macmillan, the grandson of Daniel
Macmillan, the publisher, was born in 1894. Educated at Eton
and Balliol College, Oxford.
On the outbreak of the First World War, Macmillan
left university and joined the Grenadier Guards. He served on the
Western Front where he was wounded three
times.
After the Armistice, Macmillan joined
the family publishing company but in the 1924
General Election he became the Conservative
MP for Stockton-on-Tees. Defeated in the 1929
General Election he returned in to the House
of Commons in 1931.
Macmillan was a strong believer in social reform and his left-wing
views were unpopular with the Conservative
Party leadership. Macmillan was also highly critical of the foreign
policies of Stanley Baldwin and Neville
Chamberlain and remained a backbencher until in 1940 Winston
Churchill invited him to join the government as parliamentary
secretary to the ministry of supply. In 1942 Macmillan was sent to
North Africa where he filled the new cabinet post as minister at Allied
Headquarters.
Harold Macmillan was defeated in the 1945 General
Election but returned to the House of Commons
later that year in a by-election at Bromley. After the 1951
General Election, Winston Churchill
appointed Macmillan as his Minister of Housing. Macmillan was seen
as one of the major successes in Churchill's government and received
praise for achieving his promised target of 300,000 new houses a year.
This was followed by a series of senior posts in the government: Minister
of Defence (October, 1954 to April, 1955), Foreign Secretary (April,
1955 to December, 1955) and Chancellor of the Exchequer (December,
1955 to January 1957).
When Anthony Eden resigned in 1957, Macmillan
became Britain's new prime minister. He successfully won the 1959
General Election and at first the government enjoyed an economic
boom and stable prices. In foreign affairs, Macmillan strengthen Anglo-American
collaboration and made attempts to join the European Economic Community.
Macmillan's tradition as a social reformer was reflected in his "wind
of change" speech at Cape Town in 1960 where he acknowledged
the inevitability of African independence. The introduction of the
system of life peerages to the House of Lords
and the creation of the National Economic Development Council in 1961
were other examples of unlikely Conservative
measures. In October, 1963, ill-health forced Macmillan to resign
from office.
After his retirement, Macmillan wrote Winds
of Change (1966), The Blast of
War (1967), Tides of Fortune
(1969), Riding the Storm (1971)
and At the End of the Day (1972).
Granted the title Earl of Stockton, Harold Macmillan died in 1986.
(1)
Harold
Wilson, Memoirs: The Making
of a Prime Minister, 1916-64 (1986)
I already had a perfectly
genial relationship with Harold Macmillan, a clubbable person by nature,
and we often used to
find ourselves in conversation in the Smoking Room. For the first
nine months of the Eden Government he had been Foreign Secretary.
'After a few months learning geography,' he complained to me, 'now
I've got to learn arithmetic.' He was a consummate parliamentarian
and quickly mastered his brief, as he had in every previous senior
office he had held. There must have been a chemistry at work which
brought out the best in both of us, and the debates on his first budget
and Finance Bill became popular occasions. I suddenly developed an
aptitude for dealing with serious economic and financial problems
in a humorous and personal way, to which Macmillan responded.
He and I had a happy and
stimulating relationship. In those days, even on the committee stage
of the Finance Bill, the House would fill up to listen to the most
abstruse amendments and hear us knocking each other about. After a
gladiatorial exchange, the Chancellor would pass me a note, usually
suggesting a drink in the Smoking Room, occasionally congratulating
me on my attack on him, sometimes asking a question about how I had
prepared my speech.
(2)
Harold
Wilson, speech in the House
of Commons on Harold
Macmillan (February, 1962)
In their rush to get into
Europe they must not forget the four-fifths
of the world's population whose preoccupation is with emergence
from colonial status into self-government; and into
the revolution of rising expectations. If this is so, is the world
organization not to reflect the enthusiasms and aspirations
of the new members and new nations entering into
their inheritance, often through British action, as the Prime
Minister said, and who want to see their neighbours also
brought forward into the light? It must be recognized that
this is the greatest force in the world today, and we must ask
why it is so often that we are found, or thought to be found,
on the wrong side.
The record of this country
since the war, under both Governments,
is good enough to proclaim to the world - India,
Pakistan, Burma, Ceylon, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanganyika and
Sierra Leone and, even after the agonies, Cyprus. Why do we
contrive it that in the eyes of the world we are so often allied
with reactionary governments, whose record in the scales
of human enfranchisement weigh as a speck of dust against
real gold and silver as far as our record is concerned?
Why is it that the British
Foreign Secretary speaks in accents of
the dead past, as though he fears and resents the consequences
of the very actions which his Government as well
as ours have taken?
Not only in this country
but abroad people are asking, 'Who is
in charge? Whose hand is on the helm? When is the Prime Minister
going to exert himself and govern?' I do not believe that
he can. The panache has gone. On every issue, domestic and
foreign, now we find the same faltering hand, the same dithering
indecision and confusion. What is more, Hon. Members
opposite know it, and some of them are even beginning
to say it.
The MacWonder of 1959
is the man who gave us this pathetic performance this afternoon. This
whole episode has justified our insistence eighteen months ago that
the Foreign Secretary should have been in the House of Commons. But
we were wrong on one thing. We thought that the noble lord would be
an office boy. The Prime Minister was able to
restore his tottering position today only by a fulsome tribute to
the noble lord. Indeed, to adopt the saying made famous by
Nye Bevan: 'It is a little difficult to know which is the organ
grinder and which is the other.'
(3)
Edward
Heath, The
Course of My Life (1988)
Eden's successor, Harold
Macmillan, had by far the most constructive mind I have encountered
in a lifetime of politics. He took a fully informed view of both domestic
and world affairs, and would put the tiniest local problem into a
national context, and any national problem into its rightful position
in his world strategy. Macmillan's historical knowledge enabled him
to view everything in a realistic perspective, and to illuminate contemporary
questions with both parallels and differences in comparison with the
past. His mind was cultivated in many disciplines: literature, languages,
philosophy and religion, as well as history. Working with him gave
great pleasure as well as broadening one's whole life.
Harold loved Oxford and,
above all, Balliol, where he always felt at home throughout his long
life. He was awarded a first in his Moderations, but the Great War,
during which he was wounded three times on active service, prevented
him from completing his degree. He also distinguished himself during
the 1930s, when, like Eden, he was a staunch opponent of appeasement,
and then during the Second World War, when he was Churchill's Minister
Resident at allied HQ in North Africa, working alongside Field Marshal
Alexander and General Eisenhower. His friendship with Eisenhower stood
him in good stead in later years. Harold had nothing but admiration
for his fellow soldiers, but, like everyone who has actually seen
action, he passionately hated war itself.
Harold Macmillan cared
nothing for other people's backgrounds, and judged them by their intelligence
and their character. His social policies were informed by his own
generous spirit and unquenchable desire to help the underdog, and
to ensure that everyone in this country had the opportunity of a decent
life. His speeches as a maverick and compassionate backbencher in
the 1930s gained support for his views when the Conservative Party
came to reassess its policies and priorities in the wake of the massive
general election defeat of 1945.
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