Near-socialist Macmillan
George Hutchinson
`Supermac', Labour leader? To many in the Labour Party (and especially, perhaps, to younger members) the proposition will seem fanciful if not preposterous. Yet Clement Attlee, the most successful — and circumspect — of all Labour prime ministers, was persuaded that 'but for the war' Macmillan would have been drawn into the Labour Party and become its leader. His thoughts on Macmillan now receive a brief airing in Mr James Margach's book, The Abuse of Power, which is reviewed elsewhere in this issue. How sound was Attlee's instinct? Was it ever likely that the 'natural progression' which he discerned in Macmillan could have carried him quite so far? Harold Macmillan may be an old Whig at heart. But an old Socialist, or a near one?
It is not widely known that his family background did include a touch of socialism — what in his early life was often called Christian socialism, a term seldom heard today. What is well known is that a radical inclination, already sharpened by his experiences in the trenches during the first world war, became very pronounced when, as a young MP, he represented the over-' whelmingly working-class constituency of Stockton on Tees in the dispiriting years of the Depression. Meanwhile (and this is not to be overlooked) a number of contemporaries of upbringing similar to his own —Oswald Mosley, John Strachey, Hugh Dalton, Philip Noel-Baker, Attlee himself— were already in the Labour Party, so that he need not have felt out of place had he joined it. Finally, with the rise of the European dictators, he was one of the small band of 'Churchill' Tories who supported such Labour figures as Dalton in opposition to Chamberlain's policy of appeasement.
There can be no doubt that these were the considerations underlying Attlee's estimate of Macmillan's likely course. We might look at each of them a little more closely, as Mr Macmillan enters his eighty-fifth year.
His parents (reserved, high-minded father, outgoing, strong-minded American mother) were Liberals who parted company with Gladstone over Home Rule for Ire land, which they could not support. But, as Macmillan has written in his memoirs: 'The heroic, the dominating, figure in my child hood was that of my grandfather' — the long-dead Daniel Macmillan (1813-1857), the poor Scot from Arran who established the publishing house and founded the family fortune. 'Next to that of Daniel, the two most respected names in our household were those of Frederick Denison Maurice and Charles Kingsley.'
Both were great friends of his grandfather. Maurice, now largely for
gotten, was a celebrated moralist and educationalist in his day, part-founder and first principal of the Working Men's College. Under his influence and that of the author Charles Kingsley, Daniel Macmillan joined a small but influential group which later became known as the Christian Socialist Movement and was in some sense a forerunner of the Fabian Society, although more religious than political in origin and in intent. In Harold Macmillan's own phrase, 'it was applied Christianity', representing a social impulse based upon 'an intensive feeling for the poor and the suffering'.
In the House of Commons, between the wars, he was numbered among the 'young progressives' of the Conservative Party, known to some of the narrower Tories as the 'YMCA'. He wrote his book The Middle Way. He was sympathetic to the trade unions and inclined towards co-partnership, while arguing that the state should assume a larger role in the regeneration of industry. He was attracted by Lloyd George's proposed New Deal, which was rather like a programme of his own, The Next Five Years. In all this (and much else) he displayed what was to prove a consistent liberal bias, which naturally commended him to social democrats of similar sentiment in the Labour Party.
His strongest bonds with leading members of the Labour Party were formed in resistance to Chamberlain's foreign policy, however — the policy of appeasement. Thus in 1938, when Quintin Hogg was contesting the Oxford City by-election as a champion of Chamberlain and Munich, Macmillan went down to support his opponent, A.D. Lindsay, Master of Balliol, who belonged to the Labour Party but was standing as a representative of the Popular Front. (Another
Lindsay supporter was the young Edward Heath, then an undergraduate at Balliol:) The Lindsay slogan was 'A vote for Hogg is a vote for Hitler'. Hitler won the day. All through this period, up to the final doom-laden months before the outbreak of war, Macmillan remained in touch with prominent members of the Labour Opposition. Dalton was his principal confidant, the Etonian go-between, the main link with Attlee, the leader, and with Herbert Morrison and Stafford Cripps. Macmillan spoke frequently to Dalton, who duly reported to his Labour colleagues. But the larger transactions that both had in mind did not occur. Nor did the larger meetings meetings between Churchill, Eden, Macmillan and perhaps Duff Cooper on the one side, Attlee, Morrison, Cripps and Dalton on the other. Although projected (and Attlee was keen), they never took place for lack of agreement as to tactics and procedure among the 'Churchill' Tories. Duff Cooper would not attend without Eden, and Eden refused to go. Churchill was willing enough; but without some of the other Tories the Labour leadership thought it best to call a halt to the attempt.
In essence, both sides were contemplating the formation of a National Government (the sort of combination that Macmillan was again advocating, although in different circumstances, as recently as the autumn before last) if Chamberlain could be brought down. Towards this end, Cripps for one (as he told Dalton) was prepared `to put socialism aside for the present'. 'He thought', as Dalton recorded in his memoirs, that 'we could agree on a programme to preserve our democratic liberties, to rebuild collective security, and for national control of our economic life.'
Macmillan's aim, as expressed by Dalton and conveyed to Attlee, was to secure 'an influential breakaway from the Conservative Party and a union of Labour and Liberals with Tory dissentients to form a new National Government'. To Dalton, as late as October 1938, this seemed 'still very remote'. The prospect evaporated. Attlee nevertheless believed (or persuaded himself in retrospect?) that Macmillan was moving towards membership of the Labour Party. According to James Margach's account of a conversation in 1951, Attlee said: 'Approaches and talks were going on. I was in at some. I knew what was going on. I approved.'
Yes, 'talks were going on', and Attlee was 'in at some'. But their purpose was coalition (which might conceivably have been attained had the Tory dissidents been more firmly united) —not Macmillan's admission to the Labour Party. He was ready to cooperate with Labour. War or no war, he was not ready to be converted to Labour. Attlee's was, I think, an 'idealised' conclusion in that, recognising in Macmillan certain moral qualities similar to his own, he expected Macmillan to do what he had done many years earlier. Mr Macmillan would not disagree with this interpretation.
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