THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 1920. THE METRIC SYSTEM.

Wairarapa Age, 25 March 1920, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 1920. THE METRIC SYSTEM.

The latest addition to American journalism is The Weekly Metergram, which is not, as one might suppose, an organ of the gas industry, but the organ of the World Trade Club, of San Francisco, which is heading a movement to get rid of yards, quarts, and pounds, and to substitute meters, liters, and grams. Having taken liberties with the French of it, the Glub means to go further. The first four numbers of this smartly named paper, which have just reached us, make is clear (says the Christchurch Press)" that the movement has the inost powerful support. It includes Amongst its supporters scientists like Lord Kelvin, Edison, and, Graham Bell, political leaders like Mr. Gompcrs, General Wood, and Mr. McAdoo, University professors liice Dr. Butler and Dr. Jordan, and a great array of eminent journalists, authors, manufacturers, merchants, etc. ' The Meter. gram says that all civilised nations have adopted the metric standards—34 using metrics exclusively and- 212 using metric units more than any others—with the exception of the United States of America and Britannia, which the World Club is helping along by referring to them as '' Uritania.' * The burning question, it appears, is the unit of length. Manufacturers are opposed to.the idea of making the "world inch" 25 millimeters. Dealing with this point, the Metergram quotes President F. O. Wells, of the Greenfield (Mass.) Tap and Die Machine Tool Company, as saying that the Kaiser would never have dared to declare war if the United States and Britannia had become standardised. The justification for this strange remark of Mr. Wells' is sought in the fact, or the.alleged fact, that "200,000 men were needlessly killed and 400,000 needlessly wounded because of the delay caused by "lack of metric standardisation on the part of U.S.A. and Britannia." "It is futile," says the Metergram, I "to claim that Germany did not count upon this confusion; that the Kaiser did not send out word to his agents to hold the U.S.A. and Britannia unstaiidardised with the rest of the world until after ' Germany's next ! war.' " The Kaiser was deeper than i we imagined.