LORD KEYNES DEAD

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 April 1946, Page 2

LORD KEYNES DEAD

FAMOUS ECONOMIST AND NEGOTIATOR RECENT RETURN FROM AMERICA

LONDON, April 21.

The death of Lord Keynes occurred suddenly last night at the age of 62. Lord Keynes played an outstanding part on the economic side of the two world wars. By the death of Lord Keynes from a heart attack, within a few days of his return from international monetary . talks in the United States, Britain has lost her most distinguished economist and financial negotiator, and the world a notable contributor to economic and monetary theory and practice. Criticism of Versailles From’the time when he withdrew from the Paris Peace Conference ot 1919, which he attended as the British Treasury representative, and published his criticism of< the Nersailles arrangements in “The Economic Consequences of the Peace, Lord Keynes’s opinions increasingly gained the attention of Governments. In the United States he was credited with being the inspiration of tne main economic principles of Roosevelt’s New Deal, of which some„called him. the “economic godfather. As British representative at the Bretton Woods conference m 1944, Lord Keynes was one of the architects of the International Bank of Reconstruction and the International Monetary Fund. The arrangement of an American' credit to Britain of 3,750,000,000 dollars was negotiated by him, with Lord Halifax, in Washington last year, and he defended the terms proposed from his seat m the House of Lords. From the reputation oi a brilliant and challenging economic exponent and critic, Lord Keynes became in the last 25 years the inevitable choice of governments as negotiator and constructive adviser. He was made a peer in 1942. , , <> in 1941 Lord Keyness deferred savings proposal, and other suggestions made by him in the last published work, “How to Pay for the War” (1940), were adopted in tne British Budget. From 1940 he was a member of the Treasury Consultative Council, and the author of plans for financing the war and saving the peace. Before the war he had advocated a reorganisation of the League oi Natrons so as to make its decisions enforceable. He is said to have hesitated at first to condemn the P° liciaa the Chamberlain Government but by 1938 he had become one of the bitterest opponents of appeasement, with its culmination in Munich.

Early. Career John Maynard Keynes was born, .in Cambridge, England. At King s CoiS Cambridge, J. M- Keynes was Twelfth Wrangler and President of the Cambridge Union. On graduating he e£ed the India Office and spent two years there before he returned to Cambridge as a Lecturer m Econ°HilsSfirst big Government assl | l ?" ment came in 1913 and. 1914 when he was a member o the Royal Commission on in dian Finance and Currency. The next year he entered the Treasury where he served for our years to two years as principal cleric. At the Paris Peace Conference, as well as being the Treasury’s I’epresentatix e, he was the Chancellor of the Ex chequer’s deputy on the Suprem Allied Economic Council. In the ’thirties Keynes pleaded for a broad credit base and d e J the gold standard as a barbaric relic.” He also argued /trongiy m lectures, in many articles and speeches, and m his position as c member of the Commission of Finance and Industry from 1929 tc) 1931 for the “gradual reconstruction of our social system with the object oi providing everyone with the means oSning a decent level of consumption.” —

Cause of Depression He diagnosed the cause of the cte pression as lack of purchasmg power caused by severe deflatio . suggested—the first economist of m ternational reputation to do so wi government spending.to restore pu chasing power and set industry motion. The British Government was largely unpersuaded but tn American Government to ™s ideas and carried many of them out. Among the posts held by Keynes were those of Fellow of Eto College, editor of the “Bconomie Journal,” a director of the Bank oi England, a trustee of Nation Gallery, the chairman of the Coun cil for the Encouragement of Music and Arts. Lady Keynes was a for met ballerina, Lydia the Lord Keynes married, m_l92a, the Russian ballerina, Lydia Lopoko . Mr. Attlee’s Tribute. The Prime Minister, Mr. Attlee, today paid a tribute to the work ano personality of Lord Keynes. Mi . Attlee said that the country had lost its most brilliant economist and a man wno had achieved eminence in many vailed fields. He added that he had lost a close personal friend. United States Government leaders have also sent expressions of sympathy. . ~ , The Press Association says that Lord Keynes died a victim of the strain of his latest efforts.