TIME OUT OF JOINT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 474, 23 July 1948, Page 6

TIME OUT OF JOINT

Reformers Press for Calendar Revision

OR years now groups of people in various parts of the world have been agitating for calendar reform, and last year the subject reeeived greater prominence than ever when it was brought up. before the United Nations. What is wrong with our present calendar? dt is irregular, unstable, and unbalanced, reformers say.. Every year statutory holidays fall on different days of the week, quarters are unequal in length, months all begin on different week-days and each year begins on a different day too. This irregularity causes continued and never-ceasing change in matters which should logically be routine. For one thing, every December hundreds of millions of new calendars have to be printed, using up tons of valuable paper and much valuable time. Reformers propose one or two simple, practical changes which, they say, would prevent all this uncertainty. They point out that down through the ages, as mankind developed and civilisations improved, the calendar was frequently altered. In the past, calendar reformers met with opposition, but to-day we regard the old calendars as crude makeshift arrangements. Yet our present ’ calendar isa makeshift too; it was borrowed from the Romans. The first Roman calendar was based on the moon’s cycle of 2912 days, giving a year of about 355 days. This meant that every now and then an extra

month had to be inserted to even things up, and by 54 B.C. matters had become so confused that Julius Caesar, acting on the advice of his astronomer Sosigines, decided to adopt a calendar based on the solar year of 365% days. This atrangement lasted for 1,600 years, but by that time men had begun to notice that according to the calendar spring was getting earlier and earlier every year. Dante worked it out that in a few more centuries winter would be over before January 1 appeared on the calendar. He recorded his observation in his Paradiso, where he says in Canto 27, "But ere that January be all unwintered by that hundredth part neglected upon earth, so shall these upper circles roar.’ A Slight Miscalculation What was this "hundredth part peg aang Astronomers had worked out that the interval between one spring and the next (the seasonal year) was 365.2422 days long, not 365% as Julius Caesar had been told. So in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII introduced more reforms. The Julian calendar was based on a 365-day year with a leap year in every four, but Pope Gregory found that the slight miscalculation of a hundredth part of a day could be corrected if century years (i.e. 1600, 1700 and so on) were made leap years only when they were divisible by 400. Thus 1600 and 2000 would be leap years, but 1700, 1800 and 1900 would not. To Correct the accumulated error of the past he decreed that the day following October 4, 1582, should be called October 15.

Things were now pretty well straightened out, but some countries were slow in adopting the new calendar. The Germans and Dutch didn’t adopt it until 1700, China followed suit only in 1912, Russia in 1918, and Turkey in 1927. In British countries the Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1752, when 11. extra days were dropped by calling the day after September 2, September 1 Bat.’ ie: lot: >. of people rebelled at this arbitrary decision, and

riots broke out in London and other towns. The wageearners thought that the Government was trying to cheat them out of their hard-earned pay, since at the end of September professional workers received their usual month’s . salary, while those working on a daily basis got only 19 days pay. But the new calendar became law, and we have been living and working~by it ever since. The 365th Day The main trouble with the Gregorian calendar, present-day reformers say, is that 365 won’t divide evenly by seven, so that each year has 52 weeks and one day over. This extra day is the reason why new calendars have to be printed every year, because it throws all our dates out. Thus January 1 in 1946

was a Tuesday, in 1947 it was a Wednesday, and in 1948 a Thursday. Leap year is an added complication, since, because. 1948. is a leap year, January 1 in 1949 willbe a Saturday instead ‘of a Friday. For this reason most calendar reforms are based on a 364-day year. There are three main schemes for reform. That which has been most widely accepted is sponsored by the World Cals endar Association. It proposes a calendar of 12 months with four quarters of 91 days, an international holiday (Year End Day) between December 30 and January 1, and another international holiday (Leap Year Day) falling once every four years, between June 30 and July 1. Christmas would always be on a Monday, January 1 always a Sunday, and so on. ‘The International Fixed Calendar League propose 13 months of 28 days each, with the new month, called Sol, coming between June and July. This scheme, however, has not a great deal of support. The third scheme, the Edwards Perpetual Calendar, proposes 12 months and two international holidays like the World Calendar, but every week starts on a Monday instead of Sunday. The idea of a 364-day year is not new, It was first. thought of by an Italian priest named Mastrofini in 1834. The World Calendar scheme, which is regarded by astronomers, as the most accurate and most logical method of reform, is sponsored by an American woman, Elisabeth Achelis, who has taken over Mastrofini's ideas. She maintains. that with the World Calendar in operation there would be no need for a visual calendar at all. Instead of children at school memorising the old rhyme, "Thirty days hath September," etc., they would only need to learn a few salient points of the World Calendar to be able to know what date any day of the week would fall on for ever after. Apart from the convenience of having a calendar which is good for every year of our existence, reformers claim other advantages for the 364-day year. For one thing, they say, the business of banks, mortgagors and mortgagees, retail and wholesale merchants, and all others who operate on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis would be greatly (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) simplified. Knowing in advance what day of the week holidays would fall on every year would be a great boon to employers and employees too. Two "Days Apart" But there are some difficulties the reformers’ haven’t been able to overcome. What would happen, for instance, to a person born on Year-End Day or LeapYear Day, the two "days apart" of the proposed World Calendar? According to Elisabeth Achelis, a birth, marriage, death, or any other event on either of these days would be recorded by its name and date. Such things as railway schedules (and presumably the programme pages of The Listener) would record these two days as W or December 31, and W or June 31. Employees working on these days would be compensated as on other holidays (and certainly, at international holiday rates, such overtime should pay well). * Another’ thing the World Calendar hasn’t been able to eliminate is that day of dread for the superstitious, Friday the 13th. There is a Friday the 13th in the first month of every quarter of the WorJd Calendar. (The Edwards calendar

cuts them out altogether, which might account for some of the. support it has received.) Neither do World Calendar enthusiasts say anything about the date of Easter. They say this is purely an ecclesiastical matter. At any rate, some church authorities in America are said to favour the World Calendar scheme. Early in 1947 the World Calendar proposal was brought before the United Nations by Alberto Arca Parro, Peruvian- delegate to the Economic and Social Council. He recommended that a committee be set up to discuss the reform, but so far nothing more has been done. But several nations have gone on record as _ supporting the scheme. In 1931 the League of Nations sponsored an International Calendar conference, when from 500 draft calendars the‘ World Calendar was selected and endorsed by 14 countries. Ten of them are now members of the United Nations, and their approval still stands. New Zealand’s Position Where does New Zealand stand in relation to calendar reform? Some years @go the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of:

Science set up a Calendar Reform Committee, and the director of Wellington’s Carter Observatory, I. L. Thomsen, was appointed New Zealand representative. Last May, at the annual meeting of the Royal Society of New Zealand, the World Calendar Association’s proposa! for reform was given the Society's approval. In an effort to have the reform supported nationally, the council decided to inform the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition of its decision. And’ there, as far as we are aware,’ the matter rests for the time being. : If the World Calendar Association had its way, it would introduce the reform. on January 1, 1950, for on that date the present calendar and their new ene coincide. And they wduld like the scheme to be adopted internationally too, for then the stage wotild be set, they consider, for a smoother, better organised world. This blend of optimism and high purpose is-neatly crystallised in the motto which the Association has selected for itself: Our time is out of joint; but O delight, _ That we are born this oge to set it right!

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