The Economic Consequences of the Peace

The final chapter, “Remedies,” comprises four subcategories: “1. Revision of the Treaty” (108), “The Settlement of Inter-Ally Indebtedness” (112), “An International Loan” (117), and “The Relations of Central Europe to Russia” (119). These sections discuss the legal ability to modify this postwar settlement, the need to cancel war debts between the Allies and move on, to help Germany recover by using international loans, and the relationship with Russia after its 1917 Revolution. Having spent the bulk of the book discussing the background and the problems with the Treaty of Versailles, the author takes this opportunity to offer a number of specific constructive solutions. These are the types of solutions that Keynes attempted to implement at the Paris Peace Conference when he acted as Lloyd George’s economic advisor, only to be ignored.

First, Keynes explains the difficulties of dealing with complex phenomena in postwar Europe and making economic predictions based on these difficulties: “[W]e may make the error of expecting consequences to follow too swiftly and too inevitably from what perhaps are not all the relevant causes “(107). Keynes argues that it is better to avoid the methods of the Paris Peace Conference altogether, “Those who controlled the Conference may bow before the gusts of popular opinion, but they will never lead us out of our troubles” (107).