A Revision of the Treaty: Being a Sequel to The Economic Consequence of the PeaceKeynes, John Maynard
History
A Revision of the Treaty: Being a Sequel to The Economic Consequence of the Peace
Keynes, John Maynard
Treaty of Versailles (1919 June 28); World War, 1914-1918 -- Reparations
2. I beg leave to correct a misleading passage in a footnote to p. 79
of _The Economic Consequences of the Peace_. I there spoke of “Poland’s
pre–war annual demand” for coal, where I should have said “pre–war
Poland’s pre–war annual demand.” The mistake was not material, as I
allowed for Germany’s diminished requirements for coal, due to loss of
territory, in the body of the text. But I confess that the footnote,
as published, might be deemed misleading. At the same time it is, I
think, a tribute to the general accuracy of _The Economic Consequences_
that partizan critics should have fastened so greedily on the omission
of the word “pre–war” before the word “Poland” in the footnote in
question. Quite a considerable literature has grown up round it. The
Polish Diet devoted January 20, 1921, to the discussion and patriotic
analysis of this footnote, and concluded with a Resolution ordering
the chief speech of the occasion (that of Deputy A. Wierzlicki) to be
published throughout the world in several languages at the expense of
the State. I apologize for any depreciation in the Polish mark for
which I may have been so inadvertently responsible. Mr. Wierzlicki
begins: “A book appeared by Keynes ... the author of a well–known work
on India, that pearl of the English crown, that land which is a beloved
subject of study to the English. Through such studies a man may win
himself name and fame,”—which was certainly a little unscrupulous of
me. And he concludes: “But England too must believe in facts! And if
Keynes, whose book is impregnated with a humanitarian spirit and with
understanding of the necessity to get up beyond selfish interests,
if Keynes is convinced by actual data that he has done a wrong, that
he has wrought confusion in the ideas of statesmen and politicians
as regards Upper Silesia, then he too will see with his eyes and
must become the friend of Poland, of Poland as an active factor in
the development of the natural wealth of Silesia.” I owe it to so
generous and eloquent a critic to quote the corrected figures, which
are as follows: the Polish lands, united by the Peace Treaty into the
new Polish State, consumed in 1913 19,445,000 tons of coal, of which
8,989,000 tons were produced within that area and 7,370,000 tons were
imported from Upper Silesia (the total production of Upper Silesia in
that year being 43,800,000 tons).[26] The Silesian Plebiscite has been
preceded and followed by a mass of propagandist literature on both
sides. For the economic questions involved see, particularly, on the
Polish side: Wierzlicki, _The Truth about Upper Silesia_; Olszewski,
_Upper Silesia, Her Influence on the Solvability and on the Economic
Life of Germany_, and _The Economic Value of Upper Silesia for Poland
and Germany respectively_; and on the German side: Sidney Osborne, _The
Upper Silesian Question and Germany’s Coal Problem, The Problem of
Upper Silesia_ (papers by various authors, not all on the German side,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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