The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes, 1919 Part V: Standing Room Only! by Sue Woods

“Intolerable anguish and fury” [1] had compelled Keynes to leave Paris and resign his position as financial representative of the Treasury at the Paris Peace Conference.  Jan Christian Smuts had already suggested to Keynes that he should “set about writing a clear connected account of what the financial and economic clauses of the Treaty actually are and mean and what their probable results will be.  It should not be too long, as we may want to appeal to the plain man more than to the well informed or the specialist.” [1] Keynes replied that “ he could do at any time, and speedily, what Smuts proposed, for he had it clear in his mind and it only needed putting on paper.” [1]. This account of the origin of the book is identified by Austin Robinson in his obituary to Keynes which appeared in the Economic Journal, March 1947. 

Duncan Grant with John Maynard Keynes in 1914 © Public Domain

On his return to Cambridge in July, Keynes did indeed start to write The Economic Consequences of the Peace”.  He wrote to Duncan Grant from King’s on 17 July,

“Most of the day, I think about my book, and write it for about two hours, so that I get on fairly well and am now nearly half way through the third chapter of eight. … But writing is very difficult, and I feel more and more admiration for those who can bring it off successfully.  I’ve finished to-day a sketch of the appearance and character of Clemenceau, and am starting to-morrow on Wilson.  I think it’s worthwhile to try, but it’s really beyond my powers.”[2]

Keynes left Cambridge for London on 24 July, and at the beginning of August resumed writing the book from Charleston. He wrote every morning from breakfast until lunch and by mid-August was making fast progress.

In a letter to his mother on 3 September, he wrote that he had ‘managed to keep up my average of 1,000 words fit for the printer every day, seven days a week; but there are still some very difficult bits to do.  I hope to finish by the first week of October and have it actually published before the last day of the month.’ [2]

During the Michaelmas term of 1919, Keynes delivered a course of lectures in Cambridge entitled “Economic Aspects of the Peace Treaty”.  Austin Robinson writes in his obituary to Keynes: “My principal memory of them is of the dense throng and the fight to find even standing room, for everyone was prepared to cut anything to hear Keynes; I was then a classic, and was duly reprimanded by my tutor for surprising lacunae in my knowledge of Cicero’s Letters.  But almost equally vivid is my memory of the burning sense of the world’s stupidities which animated the lecturer.  Those lectures appeared in a variant form at the end of December 1919 as The Economic Consequences of the Peace, and the world shared our excitement.”

 [1]         Millin, Sarah Gertrude.  General Smuts.  London: Faber and Faber, 1936

[2]          Skidelsky, Robert. John Maynard Keynes. Volume 1. London: Macmillan, 1983

The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes, 1919 Part IV: "The Peace Congress, where men played shamelessly..." (Virginia Woolf) by Catherine Piner and Clare Trowell

Virginia Woolf and Keynes at Monks House

While the quantifiable and qualitative responses to this work tell a story of rising economic and social eminence for Keynes, the question of the book’s purpose needs to be raised. This blog post focuses on Keynes’ motivations and therein the purpose of The Economic Consequences of the Peace.

Keynes resigned from his Government post and returned to England after his failure to drive the Treaty in the direction he thought best. Writing to Prime Minster Lloyd George on June 5th 1919, he explained:

‘I am slipping away from the scene of the nightmare. I can do no more good here. I’ve gone on hoping even through these last dreadful weeks that you’d find some way to make of the Treaty a just and expedient document. But now it’s apparently too late. The battle is lost. I leave the twins to gloat over the devastation of Europe, and to assess to taste what remains for the British taxpayer […]’ (Skidelsky, 1983, p. 375)

In his letters, Keynes makes clear that he believed the public deserved an explanation for the Treaty. In a letter to Jan Smuts on the 8th of June 1919, he wrote that he ‘hoped immensely that you may come to the conclusion that some public explanation of what is really happening and a protest against it is now the right course’ (Skidelsky, 1983 p. 376). Although Smuts was initially in favor, he eventually concluded that it were better to ‘be constructive’ rather than tear the Treaty to shreds (Skidelsky, 1983 p.377). Keynes obviously thought it would be better to give the public his opinion on the matter, and he went ahead with the book.

While some, like Lord Robert Cecil, hoped for an analysis ‘from a strictly economic point’ on the ‘dangers of the treaty,’ the book itself is not strictly economic by any means. In addition to an economic analysis, Keynes also takes time to write a few devastating descriptions of political personalities. Sue Woods’ third blog post in this series expands upon some of the personal attacks that his mother, Florence, tried to get Keynes to tone down. The deviation from economics is where the question of the book’s purpose becomes more complicated. 

In Hazen’s review (discussed in the second blog post), he describes how the pictures of Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and Wilson are unforgettably painted; ‘It is Mr. Keynes’s vivid and confident portraits of these three that are giving great pleasure to all those who dislike any one or all of the individuals concerned. In this revolting melodrama of our days Clemenceau is the heavy villain, Lloyd George the mountebank and weathercock, and Wilson the Simple Simon.’

The emphasis on these personalities is perhaps best explained in light of Virginia Woolf’s comments upon Keynes’ return. In a letter from the 8th of July 1919, Woolf explains to a friend that Keynes is:

 ‘disillusioned he says. No more does he believe, that is, in the stability of the things he likes. Eton is doomed; the governing classes, perhaps Cambridge too. These conclusions were forced on him by the dismal & degrading spectacle of the Peace Congress, where men played shamelessly, not for Europe, or even England, but for their own return to Parliament at the next election. They were not wholly vicious; they had spasm of well meaning; but a fate seemed to possess the business from the first, driving it all in the most fatal direction & soon no one had the strength to resist.’ (Woolf, 1977 p.288)

Lytton Strachey and Virginia Woolf

It is likely that there was some tension between the Bloomsbury group and Keynes. The Bloomsbury group included conscientious objectors and was largely resident at Charleston in Sussex during World War I. Whereas Keynes was working for the Government in the Treasury during the war. This may have motivated him to express his opinions in a literary way that would appeal to his friends. He was staying at Charleston with Vanessa Bell when he started to write the book. Moggeridge states in his 1992 biography of Keynes:

'During composition and later revision, Keynes was encouraged by comments and suggestions from his friends, many of whom heard him read sections, particularly his portrait of the Conference, aloud at Charleston.' (Moggeridge, 1992, p.321)

In Moggeridge’s Penguin Modern Masters (1976) book on John Maynard Keynes he also asserts:

‘The influence of Bloomsbury, its rationalism, its general optimism, and its emphasis on the importance of individuals left other marks on Keynes…and his understanding of the good society.’ (Moggeridge, 1976 p.13)

If the purpose of this book was purely an economic attack on the Treaty, why also attack the personalities of those involved? Evidently, Keynes didn’t feel that these political personalities could or should be divorced from the decisions that they made. Woolf’s comments shed some light on the impact of these individuals on Keynes. 

It seems that Keynes was just as interested in the individuals and motivations behind decisions as the decisions themselves. Hession (1984) asserts that Keynes was “not reluctant to engage in psychological analysis, and he showed familiarity with Freudian terminology, as one would expect given his Bloomsbury background and his friendships with the Stracheys.” (p.156) The Strachey brothers, having been analysed themselves in Vienna by Freud, became translators and editors of Freud’s collected works in English. Strachey used a form of ‘psychohistory’ [i]when writing his famous work Eminent Victorians, which was published in May 1918. Some critics did not like Strachey’ s mocking style of biography, but the pen sketches of Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd-George in Economic Consequences of the Peace also have a mocking tone and, perhaps, Keynes was influenced by Lytton Strachey in using this approach. Keynes’ interest in individuals and their motivations also includes those that impressed him. He wrote an emotional account of his dealings with Dr. Melchior, a member of the German delegation that left a strong, positive impression on Keynes. This memoir was first read by Bloomsbury’s Memoir Club in February of 1920. Virginia Woolf praised the work for its ‘method of character drawing’ (Skidelsky, 1983, p.359). This emphasis on individuals is likely why Keynes’ Consequences of the Peace became as popular as it did. While still economic, it was also personal and political; the latter two being far more understandable for the average reader.

Hazen's review is perhaps a prime example of the focus of the average reader. He spends significant time discussing Keynes' assessment of the political personalities, but little time looking over the actual tables and estimates that surely should be the focus of an economic explanation. Unable to really assess fully Keynes' economic conclusions, or at least unable to contradict them with strong evidence, readers could get a taste of the decisions and their implications from personalities of those involved. While perhaps seen through an economic window, the scene unfolding is a political and personal one, and that is what Keynes wrote. The purpose of the book was to educate the public on the economics of the Treaty, but it was also meant to enlighten readers about the politics and political figures behind these decisions. Just as he attacked the Treaty, so too did he attack those behind it.

REFERENCES

Hazen, C. (1920) ‘Faults and Weaknesses of Mr. Keynes’ New York Times, 29^th February.

Hession, C.H. (1984) John Maynard Keynes: A Personal Biography of the Man who Revolutionised Capitalism and the Way We Live. New York: Macmillan.

Moggeridge, D.E. (1976) John Maynard Keynes (Penguin Modern Masters) ed.by Frank Kermode. Middlesex: Penguin

Moggeridge, D.E. (1992) Maynard Keynes: An Economist’s Biography. London: Routledge

Skidelsky, R. (1983) John Maynard Keynes: Volume 1 Hopes Betrayed 1883-1920. London: Macmillan

Woolf, V. (1977) Diary of Virginia Woolf, Vol. 1 Ed. By Anne Olivier Bell. London: Hogarth

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[i] Psychohistory is a term coined by Lord Edel according to Hession’s biography of Keynes.