CALENDAR REFORM

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3308, 31 March 1926, Page 7

CALENDAR REFORM

* ARE YOU IN FAVOUR OP IT? What is to be the policy of New Zealand on the question of calendar reform? asks the Christchurch Sun. Is the Reform Government thinking about it at all? It ought really to give the country a lead. The League of Nations awaits a serious answer. The present system is as odd and as illogical as the platypus. -It persists mainly because half of the world has learnt the jingle beginning with “Thirty days hath September,” and partly because almanac-makers and other tabulators of time and tide have made calculations for many years ahead. Is there available a better system of division of Time which, according to philosophers, really does not exist at all? In a world of diviners of dates and mystic moon-months he would be a bold man who would dare to answer off-hand in the affirmative. This is why the question has been referred to the League of Nations. Let it first be tried on' the world’s watchdog! The sturdiest survivor from 137 new schemes is a proposal by a Canadian. Mr Moses B. Cotsworth, of Vancouver, 8.0., director of the International Fixed, Calendar League. The gods must have named him for the task. His. Invention has the attractive merit of simplicity.

. Thus, briefly, is the calendar of the Canadian Moses; A year of 13 months, each month to consist of 28 days, with the last day in every year appended to December and named Year Day. Why not call it Old Year Day? Its unique position in the calendar would inspire seasonable sentiment and make it akin to Kipling’s Auckland: “Last, loneliest, ■loveliest, exquisite, apart!’’ Women may want to know what is to be done about Leap Year. They need have no anxiety. Their interest has not been ignored. It is proposed that every Leap Year an international Sunday holiday be added to June and ailed Leap Day. If this Canadian calendar be adopted—there is confident talk now of its coming into force on January 1, 1928, at the earliest, or on the same date in 1933 at the latest—every New r Year’s Day will come on a Sunday, and Easter will become an immovable fast or feast recurring on the second Sunday in April. Then Christmas Day, Armistice Day, each person’s birthday, all the great days every year for ever will fall on the same day of the week. Calendars would be as regular as good clocks. The new thirteenth month, destined, ■of course, to be deemed unlucky, is to be given the bright name of Sol —after the solstice—and comfortably placed between June and July—June, Sol and July, quite a saucy midsummer and sober midwinter trio. Are you in favour of it? The League of Nations invites world-wide discussion.