page_title: Heavenly Twins (Sumner and Cunliffe)
section_title: Pre conference dissension: the Heavenly Twins opposing Maynard Keynes
hierarchical_section_title: Heavenly Twins (Sumner and Cunliffe) / The British position on reparations at Versailles / Pre conference dissension: the Heavenly Twins opposing Maynard Keynes
caption_attribution_description: John Hamilton, 1st Viscount Sumner (1859-1934)
context_page_description: The Heavenly Twins was the name assigned to two British delegates, the Judge Lord Sumner and the Banker Lord Cunliffe, during the 1919 Treaty of Versailles negotiations who were to set the terms of the peace to be imposed on Germany following the end of World War I. The two lords, together with the Prime Minister of Australia Billy Hughes, were responsible for presenting the British and British Dominions' case concerning the amount of compensatory payments, or war reparations, that were to be extracted from Germany.
context_section_description: In the months leading up to the Versailles Conference, economist  John Maynard Keynes had been assigned the task of defining the British Treasuries' position on the amount of reparations Germans could be expected to pay. Keynes came up with a figure of £3,000 million, saying that in actuality receiving even a total of £2,000 million would be satisfactory.   A power bloc composed of businessmen and representatives of the Dominions, supported by conservative politicians, felt this was far too low, but in the autumn of 1918 the Liberals had the upper hand in the governing coalition, and key ministers generally supported Keynes's view, which he had expected to be able to present at Versailles. The balance of power shifted after the December 1918 coupon election. While the liberal Lloyd George was retained as Prime Minister, voter pressure generated by a determined press campaigning had caused him to adopt a hard line attitude towards Germany. Most of the other Liberal MPs had lost their seats, including even the party leader H. H. Asquith.
  The new government commissioned an alternative committee to re-assess Germany's ability to pay, its members including Lord Cunliffe. The committee estimated that the Germans would be able to pay the full cost of the war at £24,000 million.  While this figure was approximately eight times the annual GDP of Germany before the war, Lord Cunliffe still went on to speculate that he may have underestimated Germany's ability to pay, saying that if someone suggested Germany could pay in the region of £50,000 million he "would not disbelieve them".
  It was decided that the Heavenly Twins would present Great Britain's case at the Versailles conference, with Keynes and the Treasury formerly excluded from high level talks. Keynes still attended Versailles, as the Treasuries' chief representative, with a broad remit to decide financial aspects of the transition to peace—he would still try to influence the reparations settlement by lobbying the decision makers through back channels. Other British attendees would support Keynes' view, including Jan Smuts the prime minister of South Africa,  Bonar Law the Chancellor, and Edwin Montagu the Secretary of State for India.
caption: Lord Sumner, one of the Heavenly Twins.
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