Mr. Lloyd George

Lloyd George sits among the four men Keynes calls the microcosm of mankind, representing a Britain that still stands outside Europe and cannot feel its tremors. His position is torn between an electorate hungry for German payment and the economic reality that ruin in Germany means ruin for Britain's trade and employment. In Keynes's account, his tactical flexibility matters because the Treaty's severity depended on whether British criticism stayed alert or, as too often happened, grew slack where British interests were not directly engaged.