Editing Harold Macmillan (section)

===Colonial Under-Secretary (1942)===
[[File:Harold Macmillan in 1942.jpg|thumb|upright|Macmillan in 1942]]
Macmillan was appointed [[Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies]] in 1942, in his own words "leaving a madhouse to enter a mausoleum".<ref>Harold Macmillan, ''The Blast of War, 1939–45'' (London: Macmillan, 1967), p. 161.</ref> Though a junior minister he was a member of the [[Privy Council]], and he spoke in the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] for [[Secretary of State for the Colonies|Colonial Secretaries]] [[Lord Moyne]] and [[Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury|Lord Cranborne]]. Macmillan was given responsibility for increasing colonial production and trade, and signalled the future policy direction when in June 1942 he declared:

{{quote|The governing principle of the [[British Empire|Colonial Empire]] should be the principle of partnership between the various elements composing it. Out of partnership comes understanding and friendship. Within the fabric of the [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] lies the future of the Colonial territories.{{sfn|Fisher|1982|page=82}}}}

Macmillan predicted that the Conservatives faced landslide defeat after the war, causing Channon to write (6 Sep 1944) of "the foolish prophecy of that nice ass Harold Macmillan". In October 1942 [[Harold Nicolson]] recorded Macmillan as predicting "extreme socialism" after the war.{{sfn|Campbell|2010|p=254}} Macmillan nearly resigned when [[Oliver Stanley]] was appointed Secretary of State in November 1942, as he would no longer be the spokesman in the Commons as he had been under Cranborne. [[Brendan Bracken]] advised him not to quit.{{sfn|Horne|1988|pp=151–160}}