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##### April 22, 1946 OBITUARY ## Lord Keynes Dies of Heart Attack ##### By Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES LONDON, April 21--John Maynard Lord Keynes, distinguished economist, whose work for restoring the economic structure of a world twice shattered by war brought him world-wide influence, died of a heart attack today at his home in Firle, Sussex. His age was 63. Exhausted by the strain of the International Monetary Conference at Savannah, Ga., he returned to Britain a fortnight ago, tired and ill. Lady Keynes was with her husband at his death. Lord Keynes was ill when he returned in December from the financial talks in the United States on a loan to Britain. Noted as a political and social economist who influenced both specialists and general public, his name was linked with that of Adam Smith. He was a protagonist of the theory that makes full employment the overriding aim of financial policy. Active in Many Fields His genius as a prodigy of intellect expressed itself in many other spheres of activity. He was a Parliamentary orator of high order, a historian and devotee of music, the drama and the ballet. While at Cambridge University, he founded an arts theatre there because he wanted to go to a good theatre. A successful farmer, he was an expert on development of grass feeding stuffs. He also was a book collector, and his collection of unpublished Newton manuscripts on alchemy was particularly noteworthy. Happiest in the company of artistic persons, Lord Keynes at one period was the center of a literary circle that was known as "Bloomsbury"--Lytton Strachey, Virginia Woolf and their intimate friends. Among the many who paid tributes to him tonight was Prime Minister Attlee, who said: "I have heard with very great regret of the sudden death of Lord Keynes. The country loses in him its most brilliant economist and a man of distinction in many and varied fields of activity. His services to the state as an adviser on economics and financial matters and as a negotiator were invaluable. I lose in him a personal friend of great charm." The Times of London will say tomorrow in a long editorial that the "death of Lord Keynes yesterday deprives the world of one of its great men." Book Caused Controversy Lord Keynes first won public attention through his resignation from the British Treasury's mission to the Paris Peace Conference and his subsequent prediction that the Treaty of Versailles would prove more harmful to the nations dictating it than to Germany. The reasons for his opposition were set forth in a book, "The Economic Consequences of the Peace," published in 1919, and included his premise that the reparations clauses were too severe and that other measures in the treaty were equally unwise. The book created a storm of controversy but was so widely in demand that it ran five editions the first year and was translated into eleven languages. Lord Keynes was not again associated with the British Government in any official capacity until the spring of 1940, by which time much of what he had prophesied had come true. After he had visited the United States in 1933, the British press reported that his ideas had "captivated Mr. Roosevelt." His place in economics and finance was formally recognized in 1942 with publication of the King's Birthday Honors naming him first Baron of Tilton. Vice President of World Bank Lord Keynes had participated in the first meeting of the governors of the World Bank and Fund, set up under the Bretton Woods agreements, in Savannah, and was elected a vice president of the World Bank and Fund. Just before that he had been much in the news as British negotiator of the loan agreement, now pending in the United States Senate. Born on June 5, 1883, in Cambridge, Lord Keynes entered government service at the age of 23, but continued his association with Cambridge University throughout his life and became High Steward of the city of Cambridge. His father, John Neville Keynes, was Registrary Emeritus of the university and his mother was a one-time Mayor of Cambridge. Lord Keynes' first position was as a minor official in the Revenue Department of the India Office, where he remained two years, then returned to Cambridge to teach and in 1912 became editor of The Economic Journal, a post he held throughout his life. In 1915 he joined the Treasury Department, remaining until his resignation. In 1913-14 he had served as a member of the Royal Commission on Indian Finance and Currency. His official designation at the peace conference was as the principal representative of the Treasury and Deputy for the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Supreme Economic Council. The sensation created by Lord Keynes' book, "The Economic Consequences of the Peace," was due in large part to its lucid literary style as well as to its revelation of the inside story of the Paris conference. Criticism of His Book Referring to that period, Kingsley Martin, editor of The New Statesman and Nation, a British publication, wrote several years ago: "Those who knew nothing of economics could appreciate, if only from quotations in the press, Mr. Keynes' brilliant picture of M. Clemenceau, Mr. Lloyd George and President Wilson at Versailles. "It successfully put over the point that the American President had kept his puritanical conscience clear by insisting on verbal consistency with the Fourteen Points, while allowing cunning men to find ways of getting around them. "It convinced us all that, whatever the other merits or evils of the treaty, its real vice was its failure to treat Europe as an economic whole and to reconstruct it for the benefit of the common people. It was a treaty of strategy and national greediness--with the League of Nations thrown in to make it look pretty." Lord Keynes' theories about why the treaty would fail were largely reflected in his sketches of the principal participants in the conference. He described M. Clemenceau as "by far the most eminent member of the Council of Four," who alone knew "what he wanted--namely, to cripple Germany." He claimed that President Wilson, who wielded tremendous moral influence over the people of Europe and had the physical backing of powerful American armies, lacked the intellectual equipment to match wits with either Clemenceau or Lloyd George in the give-and-take of the conference table. His characterization of the principals was summed up as follows: "These were the personalities of Paris--I forbear to mention other nations or lesser men: Clemenceau, aesthetically the noblest; the President, morally the most admirable; Lloyd George, intellectually the subtlest. Out of their disparities and weaknesses the treaty was born, child of the least worthy attributes of each of its parents, without nobility, without morality, without intellect." The book in a certain sense was the turning point in Lord Keynes' career. Thereafter he was no longer a mere economist but a prophet and pamphleteer, a journalist and the author of a best seller. Sought Spending Program Although contemptuous of Wilson, Lord Keynes was lavish in his praise of President Roosevelt. He sought, without success, to get the British Government to launch a spending program similar to that which President Roosevelt had established in the United States. He asked for a $500,000,000 a year employment fund to provide for 500,000 men, a $500,000,000 housing plan and a $500,000,000 public works fund. "It is a complete mistake," he said in 1932, "to believe that there is a dilemma between schemes of budget balancing and that we must proceed cautiously with the former for fear of injuring the latter. "Quite the contrary is true. There is no possibility of balancing the budget except by increasing the national income, which is the same thing as increasing employment." In the fall of 1935, when criticism was being leveled against President Roosevelt, Lord Keynes was asked if his theory of a nation spending its way back to prosperity was a failure. "It is actually succeeding in the United States now," he maintained. "Its critics are short-sighted." On Aug. 4, 1925, he married Lydia Lopokova, a Russian ballerina. She was eleven years younger than her husband and had been married previously to Randolpho Barrocki, her ballet manager, in the United States. She divorced Signor Barrocki in England seven months before her surprise marriage to Lord Keynes. Frequently when Britain has been faced with a perplexing financial issue, particularly in recent years when international problems were involved, Lord Keynes' advice had been relied on heavily. As a forerunner to matters taken up at Bretton Woods, N.H., in July, 1944, a White Paper, authored a year earlier by Lord Keynes and issued by the British Government, outlined a plan for a banking system between nations similar to a banking system within a nation. He took a leading role in helping to crystallize the ideas for a world bank and stabilization of international currency at the monetary conference at Bretton Woods. Some of his other books were "Indian Currency and Finance," 1913; "A Treatise on Probability," 1921; "A Revision of the Treaty," 1922; "A Tract on Monetary Reform," 1923; "A Short View of Russia," 1925; "The End of Laissez Faire," 1926; "A Treatise on Money," 1930; "Essays in Persuasion," 1931; "Essays in Biography," 1933; "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money," 1936, and "How to Pay for the War," 1940. Lord Keynes was the brother of Air Commodore Geoffrey Langdon Keynes, a British surgeon of note. He belonged to the Athenaeum Club, membership in which is restricted to men of outstanding distinction in the arts, science and public service.
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