The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, by
John Maynard Keynes

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Economic Consequences of the Peace

Author: John Maynard Keynes

Release Date: May 6, 2005 [eBook #15776]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE
PEACE***

E-text prepared by Rick Niles, Jon King, and the Project Gutenberg Online
Distributed Proofreading Team

THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE

by

JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES, C.B.
Fellow of King's College, Cambridge

New York
Harcourt, Brace and Howe

1920

PREFACE

The writer of this book was temporarily attached to the British
Treasury during the war and was their official representative at the
Paris Peace Conference up to June 7, 1919; he also sat as deputy for
the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Supreme Economic Council. He
resigned from these positions when it became evident that hope could
no longer be entertained of substantial modification in the draft
Terms of Peace. The grounds of his objection to the Treaty, or rather
to the whole policy of the Conference towards the economic problems of
Europe, will appear in the following chapters. They are entirely of a
public character, and are based on facts known to the whole world.

J.M. Keynes.
King's College, Cambridge,
November, 1919.

CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTORY
II. EUROPE BEFORE THE WAR
III. THE CONFERENCE
IV. THE TREATY
V. REPARATION
VI. EUROPE AFTER THE TREATY
VII. REMEDIES

THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

The power to become habituated to his surroundings is a marked
characteristic of mankind. Very few of us realize with conviction the
intensely unusual, unstable, complicated, unreliable, temporary nature
of the economic organization by which Western Europe has lived for the
last half century. We assume some of the most peculiar and temporary of
our late advantages as natural, permanent, and to be depended on, and we
lay our plans accordingly. On this sandy and false foundation we scheme
for social improvement and dress our politi