Harold Macmillan: Quotes about homeland

“It breaks my heart to see (I can't interfere or do anything at my age) what is happening in our country today - this terrible strike of the best men in the world, who beat the Kaiser's army and beat Hitler's army, and never gave in. Pointless, endless. We can't afford that kind of thing. And then this growing division which the noble Lord who has just spoken mentioned, of a comparatively prosperous south, and an ailing north and midlands. That can't go on.”

Harold Macmillan

"Great Parliamentary Speeches" CD.
Maiden speech in the House of Lords, 13 November 1984.
1980s

Men , Age , World , Heart

“Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about a modern battlefield is the desolation and emptiness of it all…one cannot emphasize too much. Nothing is to be seen of war or soldiers--only the split and shattered trees and the burst of an occasional shell reveal anything of the truth. One can look for miles and see no human being. But in those miles of country lurk (like moles or rats, it seems) thousands, even hundreds of thousands of men, planning against each other perpetually some new device of death. Never showing themselves, they launch at each other bullet, bomb, aerial torpedo and shell. And somewhere too (on the German side we know of their existence opposite us) are the little cylinders of gas, waiting only for the moment to spit forth their nauseous and destroying fumes. And yet the landscape shows nothing of all this--nothing but a few shattered trees and three or four lines of earth and sandbags, these and the ruins of towns and villages are the only signs of war anywhere visible. The glamour of red coats--the martial tunes of flag and drum--aide-de-camps scurrying hither and thither on splendid chargers--lances glittering and swords flashing--how different the old wars must have been!”

Harold Macmillan

letter to his mother, May 13, 1916
1910s

Death , Men , War , Truth

“What I do not see is the argument...that we ought somehow to go on a quite different issue, a purely economic issue, to this new extreme which seems, greatly to my regret, to have inspired part of my party. There are no longer the principles of Lord Shaftesbury, Mr. Disraeli or Mr. Churchill. We are reverting to a form of neo-Cobdenism based upon the worst elements of the Manchester school, supported by aphorisms that would have done honour to that popular writer, Dr. Samuel Smiles. The paternalist elements and traditions of the Tory Party that come from its very roots are now unpopular. We are making a great error. It is because the people as a whole trusted those whom they regarded as their natural leaders to help them, support them and protect them that we have had the great authority in the past in our country.”

Harold Macmillan

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1986/jan/21/shops-bill-hl-1#column_159 in the House of Lords (21 January 1986) on the Shops Bill that would have ended government regulation of Sunday shopping in England and Wales
Later life

School , Country , Making love , Past

“Indeed, let us be frank about it. Most of our people have never had it so good. Go around the country, go to the industrial towns, go to the farms, and you will see a state of prosperity such as we have never had in my life time—nor indeed ever in the history of this country. What is beginning to worry some of us is, is it too good to be true?—or perhaps I should say, is it too good to last? ... Our constant concern to-day is, can prices be steadied while at the same time we maintain full employment in an expanding economy? Can we control inflation? This is the problem of our time.”

Harold Macmillan

Speech at Bedford (20 July 1957), quoted in "More production 'the only answer' to inflation", The Times (22 July 1957), p. 4
Prime Minister

Time , History , Country , People

“The masses now took prosperity for granted. ... The country simply did not realize that we were living beyond our income, and would have to pay for it sooner or later.”

Harold Macmillan

Letter to Nigel Nicolson (26 June 1957), quoted in Alistair Horne, Harold Macmillan, Volume II: 1957–1986 (London: Macmillan, 1989), p. 64
Prime Minister

Country