At exactly the same time as Crookshank’s mind was turning to politics and Empire so was Harold Macmillan’s. Macmillan, like Crookshank and Cranborne, was attracted to the idea of foreign climes.60 Macmillan’s contacts were perhaps not as highly placed as Cranborne’s, but he was not without resources. His first port of call was George Lloyd, a former Conservative MP whom he had met through his Oxford Union activities. Lloyd was about to depart for India as Governor of Bombay and offered Macmillan a post as his ADC. It was not to be, since the Bombay climate was, as his doctors pointed out, hardly ideal for a man with still suppurating wounds. Macmillan wanted to be an ADC, however, and an imperial governor operating in a colder climate was desperate for his services.
Victor Cavendish, ninth Duke of Devonshire, had been shipped off to Canada for the duration in 1916. At times he felt himself sadly neglected – not least in the matter of ADCs. The kind of young men His Grace wanted were not to be had when there was a war on. Those he was sent were ‘worse than useless’.61 They were as keen to leave him as he was to be rid of them.62 His wife, Evie, was dispatched to London on a desperate mission to recruit some new blood. Although Macmillan was not one of the young aristocrats Devonshire had in mind, Nellie Macmillan was an acquaintance of the Duchess of Devonshire from the pre-war charity circuit. Harold was laid in her path and snapped up with gratitude. When he stepped off the boat in Canada, he was greeted by a most eager employer. The bond was sealed by a game of golf. ‘He plays quite well and is much better than I am,’ noted Devonshire, for whom his own lack of prowess on the links was a constant lament. ‘Macmillan is certainly a great acquisition,’ the duke concluded.
On departing for Canada, Macmillan had planned to take a close interest in the North American political scene. The main interest of the Devonshire circle, as it turned out, was romance. The two Cavendish girls had been deprived of suitable male company for nearly three years and were more than a little excited by the arrival of so many eligible young bachelors. Lady Rachel Cavendish whisked the new ADCs straight off the boat to a dance. Within a month of their arrival Macmillan’s fellow ADC, Harry Cator, ‘a most attractive boy’, had to be disentangled from an unsuitable romantic attachment.63 Unlike his friend, Macmillan was no young blade, but within months he had shown an interest in the Devonshires’ other daughter, Lady Dorothy. At the end of July the duke noticed that they had ‘got up early to go to M’ Jacques to see the sun rise’.64 Devonshire regarded Macmillan as a perfectly acceptable match for his daughter.65 Lady Dorothy herself seemed much less sure. ‘After tea,’ one day at the beginning of December 1919, ‘Harold proposed in a sort of way to Dorothy but although she did not refuse him definitely nothing was settled. She seemed to like him but not enough to accept and says she does not want to marry just yet.’ Her father was glad to see that ‘She seemed in excellent spirits. After dinner they went skating.’66 Macmillan broke her down over Christmas. On Boxing Day 1919 ‘Dorothy and Harold settled to call themselves engaged’.67 ‘I do hope it is alright,’ noted her father worriedly.68 There was certainly something in the air that Canadian New Year which inclined the young to romance: two more of Harold’s fellow ADCs also became engaged.
When Harold Macmillan married Dorothy Cavendish in April 1920 at St Margaret’s, Westminster – the same church Oliver and Moira Lyttelton had used a few weeks previously – he committed himself to making money from publishing. At the same time he gained an entree into high politics. Devonshire was very fond of his new son-in-law. Indeed, he saw something of his young self in him. He himself had been an enthusiastic professional politician, a ‘painstaking’ financial secretary to the Treasury. In many ways his elevation to a great dukedom – which he inherited from his uncle – had deprived him of a career.69
Devonshire gladly re-entered politics in October 1922 when the coalition disintegrated over Chanak. Victor Devonshire replaced Winston Churchill in the Cabinet as colonial secretary. While in Canada, Devonshire ‘found’, as Macmillan recalled, ‘that I was interested in political problems, he would discuss them freely with me’.70 In London this habit continued – but now with much more interesting issues to mull over.71 Macmillan remembered calling on the duke during the course of the formation of Bonar Law’s government. ‘I found Lord Derby in conference with him. The Duke…pointed out the extreme weakness of the front bench in the House of Commons…“Ah,” said Lord Derby, “you are too pessimistic. They have found a wonderful little man. One of those attorney fellows, you know. He will do all the work.” “What’s his name?” said the Duke. “Pig,” said Lord Derby. Turning to me, the Duke replied, “Do you know Pig?”…It turned out to be Sir Douglas Hogg!’72
The most pressing policy issue that Victor Devonshire had to face at the Colonial Office was the need for some kind of new relationship with two British colonies in Africa: Rhodesia and Kenya. Both were examples of entrepreneurial colonies – initially exploited by chartered companies. Each had a group of European settlers keen to lay their hands on as much political power as possible. Yet in Kenya and Rhodesia the white settlers were only a small proportion of the total population, the majority being made up of indigenous Africans. The dream of Commonwealth came directly into collision with the duties of trusteeship. The Colonial Office’s official view was that ‘whether therefore we look to natives for whom we hold a trusteeship or [a] white community which is insufficiently strong politically and financially – the obstacles to early responsible government…appear prohibitive’. In each case the solution in the eyes of civil servants in London was to incorporate these small but troublesome outposts of empire into some wider whole. In the case of Rhodesia, union with South Africa seemed to beckon; in the case of Kenya, closer association across the Indian Ocean with India. Whitehall had, however, underestimated the contrary spirit of the settlers. In both countries the settlers spawned rebarbative political leaders quite willing to defy the mother country.
In Southern Rhodesia the opposition was led by Sir Charles Coghlan, an Irish Roman Catholic lawyer from Bulawayo. In London Smuts might be hailed as the great imperial statesman-visionary. In Salisbury he was seen as little more than the frontman for Boer imperialism. When he declared that ‘the Union is going to be for the African continent what the United States has become for the American continent; Rhodesia is but another day’s march on the high road of destiny’, Rhodesian unionists took it as a signal that a republican South Africa might secede from the Empire. In November 1922 the settlers voted by 59.43 per cent to 40.57 per cent against union with South Africa.73 Effectively they forced the British government to buy out the chartered South Africa Company and grant self-government. The negotiations created much ill-will. In July 1923 the Colonial Office gave the company two weeks to accept appropriation. Devonshire’s under-secretary, Cranborne’s brother-in-law and friend, Billy Ormsby-Gore, struck a deal that gave the company three and three-quarter million pounds and half the proceeds on government land sales until 1965.74 The deal left a settler community confident in its own power to manipulate Britain and a disgruntled company that, all admitted,