That Lord Keynes should have left £479,000 is astonishing. He
did not, so far as I know, inherit money ; both his parents are still alive, and the family, in any case, was no more affluent than a Cambridge don's family normally is. Neither, though latterly he held several lucrative directorships, can his income have been par- ticularly large. His first considerable earnings, I imagine, came from his Economic Consequences of the Peace, a volume about whose prospects the publishers in the first instance took no very enthu- siastic view. The general inference is that he must have been un- usually successful in his investments—though that conclusion is a little shaken by the history of the Independent Investment Company of which he was for some years chairman. For a substantial period its dividends were nil or I per cent. Speculations abou,t other people's speculations are no doubt proper only up to a point, but the basis of a brilliant financier's success in his private finances is a matter of legitimate public interest.
* * *- *
Previous page
