THE CALENDAR

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 December 1928, Page 9

THE CALENDAR

PLEA FOR REFORM.

An interesting feature of the recent Trades Union Congress was the prompt acceptance of a proposal made by the Railway Clerks’ Association for the reform of the calendar, writes Harold Cox in the “Daily Mail.” The present Christian calendar, now used throughout the greater part of the world, has the awkward defect that important festivals and holidays fall in successive years on different days of the week or of the month. Happily there is good reason to believe that the Christian Churches are now prepared favourably to consider the case for a fixed Easter. The matter has been discussed by the League of Nations, and no serious opposition came from any quarter. But the fixing of Easter is not the only calendar reform that we need. The failure of the days of the week to fall in successive years on the same days of the month is a recurring cause of inconvenience to millions.

Again, our August bank holiday is fixed to fall on the first Monday in August; but that Monday moves in different years from August 1 to August 7. Apart from these particular irritations, we have the general inconvenience that we are unable automatically to link together days of the week and days of the month. From all these points of view it would obviously be a convenience if we could have a calendar which provided that our Church festivals and our popular holidays should fall on regular dates, and that our days of the week should year after year fall on the same days of the month. The primary difficulty to be overcome is the awkward arithmetical fact that G 35 divided by 7 leaves one over. The obvious way out of the difficulty is to treat the day over as an extra day that does not belong to any month or to any week. Our year would then consist of 52 weeks, plus one day. This extra day would have to be endowed with a name of its own. Probably the best plan would be to make it the last day of the year and call it “Old Year’s Day.” It should certainly be treated as a bank holiday. Similar considerations apply to the extra day which comes in Leap Year. The best way to deal with “Leap Year” would be to transfer it from the end of February to the middle of the year and make it an additional Bank Holiday. But more still is needed. Our calendar has the further defect that the months vary in length from 28 to 31 days. This defect, is not due to the sun or to the moon, but to the casual mentality of human beings. The first and perhaps most obvious remedy is to create an extra month so that the year can be divided into 13 months, each containing 28 days, or exactly four weeks. Then month after month throughout the year each week-day would fall on the same month day. The objection to this scheme is that it would throw out our quarter days, which are important dates for many financial transactions. It is also doubtful whether the general public, in this or any other country, is prepared for such a big change. We shall therefore do wisely to seek a less drastic solution. And it can be found. All that is needed is to change the lengths of a few of our months by one day and the length of February by two days. On this plan the first, month of each quarter would have 31 days, and the other two 30 days each.

Preferably the first day of the year and of each quarter of the year should i be a Sunday; the last day of each quarter would then be a Saturday. Alter the Saturday at the end of December would come “Old Year’s Day” to close the year, followed by “New Year’s Day,” Sunday, January 1. Christmas Day, December 25, would always fall on a Monday: Easter Day might desirably be fixed for Sunday, April 15. Whit Monday would fall regularly on June 4, the August Bank Holiday on August 6. As regards the Christmas bank holiday. it would probably be wise lor England to adopt the Scottish custom and to shift the holiday to the beginning of the New Year, making it the Monday following New Year’s Day. Wo should thus get at the turn of the year three successive off days —“Old Year’s Day,” Sunday, January 1, Monday, January 2.

This is not. a political reform; it is a national and a. world reform. Surely the matter is one in which our own ■ Government might well take a leading part.