Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- General Introduction
- Editorial Foreword
- Preface
- Introduction to New Edition
- Notes on Further Reading
- Corrections to this Edition
- I THE TREATY OF PEACE
- 1 PARIS (1919)
- 2 THE CAPACITY OF GERMANY TO PAY REPARATIONS (1919)
- 3 PROPOSALS FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION OF EUROPE (1919)
- 4 THE CHANGE OF OPINION (1921)
- 5 WAR DEBTS AND THE UNITED STATES (1921, 1925, 1928)
- II INFLATION AND DEFLATION
- III THE RETURN TO THE GOLD STANDARD
- IV POLITICS
- V THE FUTURE
- VI LATER ESSAYS
- Index
2 - THE CAPACITY OF GERMANY TO PAY REPARATIONS (1919)
from I - THE TREATY OF PEACE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- General Introduction
- Editorial Foreword
- Preface
- Introduction to New Edition
- Notes on Further Reading
- Corrections to this Edition
- I THE TREATY OF PEACE
- 1 PARIS (1919)
- 2 THE CAPACITY OF GERMANY TO PAY REPARATIONS (1919)
- 3 PROPOSALS FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION OF EUROPE (1919)
- 4 THE CHANGE OF OPINION (1921)
- 5 WAR DEBTS AND THE UNITED STATES (1921, 1925, 1928)
- II INFLATION AND DEFLATION
- III THE RETURN TO THE GOLD STANDARD
- IV POLITICS
- V THE FUTURE
- VI LATER ESSAYS
- Index
Summary
From The Economic Consequences of the Peace, chapter 5, ‘Reparation’.
It is evident that Germany's pre-war capacity to pay an annual foreign tribute has not been unaffected by the almost total loss of her colonies, her overseas connections, her mercantile marine, and her foreign properties, by the cession of ten per cent of her territory and population, of one-third of her coal and of three-quarters of her iron ore, by two million casualties amongst men in the prime of life, by the starvation of her people for four years, by the burden of a vast war debt, by the depreciation of her currency to less than one-seventh its former value, by the disruption of her allies and their territories, by revolution at home and Bolshevism on her borders, and by all the unmeasured ruin in strength and hope of four years of all-swallowing war and final defeat.
All this, one would have supposed, is evident. Yet most estimates of a great indemnity from Germany depend on the assumption that she is in a position to conduct in the future a vastly greater trade than ever she has had in the past.
For the purpose of arriving at a figure it is of no great consequence whether payment takes the form of cash (or rather of foreign exchange) or is partly effected in kind (coal, dyes, timber, etc.), as contemplated by the Treaty. In any event, it is only by the export of specific commodities that Germany can pay, and the method of turning the value of these exports to account for reparation purposes is, comparatively, a matter of detail.
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- Information
- The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes , pp. 6 - 13Publisher: Royal Economic SocietyPrint publication year: 1978