IS IT WANTED?

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 32, 8 February 1932, Page 3

IS IT WANTED?

CALENDAR REFORM

ENORMOUS DIFFICULTIES

RE-WRITING HISTORY

Xow Year's Day forever on Sundayl Christmas for ever on Sunday! Easter always on schedule!

How_ do you like it? Every dato of the year on the same day. Every wedding anniversary on the same day— Monday, Tuesday, Friday—whatever day you were married on. Every.first of the month on Sunday—payday Monday, writes John Coontz in the "San.Francisco Chroniclci"

Well, that is calendar reform—the latest thing affecting the .-lives of men, women, and children throughout the world, to say nothing of business, religious, _ and other organisations. "Simplification of the calendar," it's called. The present calendar may have beeu all right in. Pope Gregory's time, but modern civilisation demands modern treatment of it..

As a result, we have an International Committee, under the auspices of the League of Nations, with forty-four nations represented, listening to church representatives, representatives of industry and national businesses and bodies, presenting arguments as to why or why wo should not have calendar reform. This international conference recently met in Geneva. ■ •'...,.

Two definito proposals for reform were discussed, said Dr. Marvin. Calendar reform, if it comes, most likely will follow one or the other of these proposals. Each has its advantages and each its disadvantages, and one at least has quite a following in the business world. For general purposes of identification we may call one of tho proposals the "International Fixed Calendar" reform, the other the "World Calendar" reform. Of the two, the "International Fixed is ;it present a flight favourite. About 150 firms-now use it in time divisions. ,

This; calendar consists .'of thirteen I months, each month containing twentyeight days. Thus each month of the year ■will always start on the same day. The extra day—the 365th—in each year is placed at the end. giving December twenty-nine days. Leap-Year Day— every four years—is appended to June, giying that month twenty-nine days. A new month, called Sol, is inserted between June and July, creating a thirteenth month. Summer was chosen for the insertion of this inoiith owing to the minimum amount of confusion insertion at that time would cause. j THE "WORLD CALENDAR." The 29th of December—the 365 th day—is known as Year Day on this calendar, and falls between Saturday the- 28th, and Sunday, the Ist of January.... It as the eighth day' of the year's last -week. ''■ ;. The."World Calendar proposes to keep our present twelve-month division of the year divided into fifty-two weeks. This is accomplished by having ninetyone days .in each quarter period of the year. Tor "instance, January would have thirty-one days, February and March thirty each. April would have thirty-one, May and June thirty, and so forth. As for the 365 th, day, instead of- being'added at the end of the year, it is inserted between Saturday, 30th June, and Sunday, Ist July. Leap-Year Day is placed at the end of the.year. The year the calendar would1 bo put into effect "would be tho> first one.start-' ing on Sunday. "■";" ''■?'■■-:. ■.. .'■;.- Easter, 'on this calendar, would fall regularly, on the ninety-ninth day of the year—a time held quite appropriate by the religious world, as tradition' has. it that Christ was crucified on the ninety-seventh, day. Our present calendar, which takes its name from Pope Gregory, of the eleventh century, is a reformation of the Julian calendar. Julius Caesar was responsible for the earlier calendar. Caesar did riot like the [ then existing Roman calendar, so in 46 B.C. ho decreed, its reform. The ten limar months of tho- old Boman calendar were extended to twelve. These were divided, thirty-one and thirty days alternately, with the exception of February, which had twenty-nine. To make the transition it was necessary; to have a, year of fifteen months. This Caesar decreed, the year extending from "13th October to tho second following 31st December. This year is known in history as the "year of confusion;" Because July, .'.named after Caesar, had thirty rone days, Augustus Caesar, when^he. became Emperor, took another day from; February and added it to August. His month had to be as long as that: of Julius. . TOO LONG. . There were 365^ days in the' Julian year, which made it, eleven minutes and'fourteen seconds longer than thosolar year. This discrepancy gradually led to a change in the. cajenda* date of the equinox;-':By 1580 A.D. tho equinox was occurring ten days earlier than it should have takon place—llth March. This caused Pope Gregory XIII. to take a hand in calendar reform. Ho dropped ten days from October in 1582, pushing the month up fromthe sth to the 15th. Then, because the-Julian . calendar gained a single day about* every 400 years, Pope Gregory decreed that of the centesimal years, only those exactly divisible by 400 should be leap years. By this reform the civil and astronomical calendars were brought within one day of each other every 3330 years. All the Boman Catholic countries of Europe immediately adopted the Gregorian calendar. Germany retained the old style until 1700, and England until 1752. The present, calendar-reform movement, in so far as the United States is concerned, dates from about 1922. In that year the United States Chamber of Commerce and the American Section of the International Chamber considered the need for simplifying the calendar, and decided that action along this lino should be taken. Tho International Chamber thereupon requested the League of Nations to take up the question. The following year the League appointed a committee of inquiry on calendar simplification, and that committee devoted a great deal of time to the consideration of 185 proposals from thirty-eight nations for calendar, reform. The report oi" this committee was voluminous, and resulted in a request from the League that tho United States, along with other nations interested, set up national committees to study reform. VARIATION. The factors working for a change in the present calendar are alleged defects involving length of month, variation in the number of weeks in a month, and lack of fixity in tho calendars. In connection with these defects it is pointed out that there is a difference of 11 per cent, between the length of February and tho length of March, and an even greater difference between the number of working days. Dates of the month fall each year on different days, and, as for thp weeks, somo months have four and some four and a fraction —a very vexatious arrangement, it is charged. Periodical events cannot be fixed with precision because of this. By setting up a year of thirteen months of twenty-eight days each, it is argued, these defects of our present calendar may bo overcome. For Instance, all thus would be made equal, the day of tho week would indicate the

monthly date and, .conversely, the monthly date would indicate the day of the week.

The complete four weeks would quarter exactly all mouths, thus harmonising weekly wages and expenses. Pay-days would occur regularly and, as each week-day would recur on its fixed monthly date, business and home lifo would be facilitated. The periods for earning and spending would be either equal or exact multiples of each other. Fractions of weeks at monthends would cease. The four-week months would obviate many of the difficulties of the present four and five week months. The figuring of interest would '■ be simplified by the new calendar; money would turn over faster in business, workmen benefited, labour served advantageously as to holidays. CHIEF OPPONENTS. Opposition at the international conference in Geneva came chiefly from the Jewish people and the Sabbatarians. These object to the disturbances of the Sabbath Day, which would follow the introduction of the eight-day week at the end of each year and every fourth year. OtKerwise, from.the dogmatic point of view, simplification of the calendar, ho found, met with no insuperable obstacles. Ecclesiastical representatives of the ' Greek, Roman Catholic, and Anglican Churches did not view church opinion standing in the way of reform, though, fo say the least, the whole liturgical year, both Catholic and Protestant, would have to bo rearranged. :. Public opinion, however, is another thing. Those who oppose calendar reform assert that as yet there,is no public demand for it. Public opinion, they charge, is little cognisant of the changes proposed, both in the United States and abroad. Few groups, they declare, have expressed themselves, and there is no evidence to show that those who have expressed themselves are not a minority in control rather than a majority of the groups. ■'■•'. . ■ ; After all, it is pointed out, 365 days are 365 days, no matter how you divide them, whether into ten, twelve, or thirteen months. The birth of a child ia computed by days fixed by the, solar year, and nine months or ten months aro incidental. Under'the present calendar six months' interest on money borrowed is for a period of 180 days. Under the thirteen-month calendar" tlie same interest period would bo for IBS days. For a sum of money to net tho lender the same. interest for the two periods' of time, a higher rate would have to be charged for the shorter time. As,interest rates are fixed by law in the States new laws would have to bo passed to give money-lenders their accustomed 0,- 7/ or S per cent, return. ' . . ' LACK OF VARIETY. Variety is the spiee-of life, they point out. Who, therefore, would • like to have every Fourtli of July coming on Wednesday? Sometimes, it is pointed out,: we like to have the Fourth come on Saturday or Monday. This ensures a week-end rest of two full days during a very hot month of the year. And Easter exactly on schedule! And New, Year's Day always on Sunday. Sundays already are days of rest, so why pilo' another-day of rest on top of it?" And no day or so to jingle change in your pocket after pay-day before it has to bo handed over to the landlord or the wife. A standardised day, standardised week, standardised month, a fully standardised man—not so good, says this group of objectors. ■■; To change the present calendar, they further argue, would cause confusion in regard to all anniversary dates, birthdays, holidays, and other fixed events. Every text-book wouldl have, to be changed, every encyclopaedia, every record, every history. Tho whole church calendar would have to b'e lrea"djustedi In fact, every event for the-last'2oo years in England and for the last 1000 in^many other countries T\rould have tobe'related to the new> calendar. .' ■' _. TheY world was ignorant then, living in a sea of darkness, below which was an ocean of mud. A change in the calendar in the smallest State in the.world to-day would entail more confusion than Gregory's change' did in all Europe. OTHER DIFFICULTIES. Eeform in the calendar would from the standpoint. of business and banking require clearing houses and .bank's to add an additional month to their labburs, magazines to" add an" additionall publication and additional advertising,! or, in other words, prorate their twelve months' business' on a thirteen-month basis. Wage-earners paid on a weekly basis—and the majority of them are so paid, it is declared—would still be paid on a weekly basis, but would have to pay light, heat, and rent thirteen times instoad of twelve, as now. It would be necessary to re-make all rental leases, change or interest rates, adjust all rents and:wages, straighten out all instalment accounts. The labour entailed in making the change and the confusion that would ensue is held by many as overbalancing the benefits derived. How many centuries will we be getting the millions of items now dated to our. present calendar transferred properly and: without prejudice in the minds of some billion inhabitants of the world? ■ Never!" exclaim those who are satisfied with the present calendar.