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nydus/The Economic Consequences of the PeacePublic

John Maynard Keynes, a former British Treasury representative at the Paris Peace Conference, outlines his objections to the economic policies established by the Treaty of Versailles. He argues that the terms of the peace agreement threaten the stability of the European economic organization and risk further damaging a system already weakened by war.

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Table of Contents

The Treaty

of the Treaty are now familiar. Under Annex III. of the Reparation Chapter Germany is to cede up to 20 per cent of her inland navigation tonnage. Over and above this she must cede such proportion of her river craft upon the Elbe, the Oder, the Niemen, and the Danube as an American arbitrator may determine, "due regard being had to the legitimate needs of the parties concerned, and particularly to the shipping traffic during the five years preceding the war," the craft so ceded to be selected from those most recently built.72 The same course is to be followed with German vessels and tugs on the Rhine and with German property in the port of Rotterdam.73 Where the Rhine flows between France and Germany, France is to have all the rights of utilizing the water for irrigation or for power and Germany is to have none;74 and all the bridges are to be French property as to their whole length.75 Finally the administration of the purely German Rhine port of Kehl lying on the eastern bank of the river is to be united to that of Strassburg for seven years and managed by a Frenchman to be nominated by the new Rhine Commission.

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