In October 1919 Keynes was invited to Amsterdam and on his return wrote the following account of what took place.

NOTE ON FINANCIAL CONFERENCE AT AMSTERDAM, 13–15 OCTOBER 1919

On October the 12th I left London for a brief visit to Amsterdam, ignorant before I went as to the exact purport of my visit, on the invitation of Dr Vissering, the Governor of the Bank of the Netherlands, and of Mr Fred I. Kent, who was in charge of the foreign exchange department of the Federal Reserve Board during the war, and is now, I understand, the temporary representative of the United States on the Reparation Commission in Paris. When I got there, I found Dr Vissering, Mr ter Meulen, Mr Van Vollenhoven, Mr Kent, Mr Paul Warburg and M. Raphael Georges Levy.

Dr Vissering had prepared a long programme for discussion on the financial position of Europe. We had, accordingly, some very prolonged discussions on the whole situation, covering a good deal of familiar ground. What, however, was the most significant and by far the most important outcome of the meeting was the fact that Dr Vissering put forward a scheme for an international loan to be furnished mainly by America, but to which the neutrals also were to contribute on a generous scale. For example, he (and it must be remembered that he is the Governor of the Bank of the Netherlands) put down Holland for as large a contribution as the United Kingdom, viz. $200 million.