Roger Sandilands wrote: "[Young defined 'credit' as currency plus demand 
deposits, and was a critic of Edwin Cannan for focussing only on 
currency, and would no doubt equally fault James on this score.]"

Young might have believed in the genuineness of his criticism of 
distinguishing money (cash or currency) from "credit."  But does that 
make him correct?  I think the classical distinction is more useful.  
Credit is the facility to make a purchase (or obtain a good or service) 
without money (cash), thus a liability of the user.  But a user of cash 
incurs no liability.  Cash is the holder's asset, just as is the demand 
deposit for its owner.  But when one writes a check to make a purchase, 
one is using an "instrument of credit," incurring a liability in the 
process.  (That's why one's driver's license is usually required in the 
U.S.to employ the means of payment.)  

Now a central bank may vary the quantity of money (currency) in an 
economy by expanding or contracting its "credit."  But, given the 
quantity of money (currency), the volume of credit may contract or 
expand depending upon the flow of savings or financial institutions' own 
demand for reserves (cash) -- withholdings from the public's deposits 
with them.  And whereas variations in a central bank's credit (currency) 
creation have more direct effects on the price level, the same does not 
follow from variations in private sector's credit (savings).  Only 
private sector's demand to hoard cash does.  Thus, I find the classical 
distinction between money (currency), which derives from a modern 
central bank's credit creation, and demand deposits (part of private 
sector 'savings') more analytically useful. 

On Currie's contributions to the literature, Sandilands suggests: "Maybe 
James will first read chapter 12 of David Laidler's _Fabricating the 
Keynesian Revolution_ for an account of Currie's considerable 
contributions to the literature on monetary and fiscal theory and 
policy, or chapters 2 and 3 of my 1990 biography."

I wonder if Sandilands has in mind chapter 9 of Laidler's book rather 
than 12 (on IS-LM).  I did read that as well as his biography and 
Laidler's 1993 article on the origins of the Chicago School.  Besides 
Laidler's and Sandilands' 2002 /HOPE/ article on the 1932 Harvard 
Memorandum, it was those sources I had in mind when I made my comment 
about "much too much" being made about Currie's contributions to our 
understanding of the necessary monetary mechanism to deal with a 
depression.  I remain puzzled by comments like, the 1932 document to 
which Currie contributed was "evidence about an *original* and 
provocative element in the macroeconomic thought of an important 
intellectual center, namely, Harvard, in the early years of the 
depression" (Laidler and Sandilands 2002, 516), when all Currie, 
Ellsworth, and White did was mostly to have applied the quantity theory 
of money.   Indeed, Currie (1934, 4) himself subsequently wrote: "The 
logic of practically all monetary theories of the business cycle called 
for an energetic expansion of money in 1930-33."  And such monetary 
theory was well known to the likes of Fisher, Viner, Mints, and Knight 
in the U.S., and numerous others, including Hawtrey, Pigou, and 
Robertson in the U.K.  In fact, I trace the principle all the way back 
to David Hume (1752), especially on the "good policy of the magistrate" 
to sustain the price level from falling.

Incidentally, I just noticed from Robert Leeson's piece on the web,  the 
fact that Currie considered himself "a Keynesian from way back ... my 
theoretical approach had been influenced by Keynes since my London 
School of Economics days in 1922-25" and he was "using [Keynes's] 
Treatise in classes at Harvard."  On the other hand, I read Laidler and 
Sandilands as strenuously attempting to distance Currie from Keynes's 
influence.  Further material in my efforts to correct the view of Currie 
that Sandilands has written, especially in a way that would make it 
acceptable for publication; read, "getting past the referees."

Meanwhile, I plead guilty to my "rather overweening self-belief" in 
being able to succeed in the task.  Isn't that a prerequisite for anyone 
who undertakes to challenge established authority? 

James Ahiakpor