Abstract

May 2004 marks the 200-year anniversary of the publication of the House of Commons report of "The Committee on the Circulating Paper, the Specie, and the Current Coin of Ireland" . The report of this committee the 1804 Report has rightly been hailed by economic historians as "... a milestone in the history of monetary theory" . The significance of this report has, however, been overshadowed by the Bullion Report of 1810. It addressed essentially similar issues, and indeed cites with approval significant tracts of the Irish Report and was produced by a committee which contained some of the most influential members of the Irish Currency Committee of 1804 . The Bullion report probably assumed iconic status for the modern equivalent of bullionists, namely, monetarists, by the pivotal involvement of the great economist David Ricardo in its deliberations.