DATE OF EASTER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22391, 11 April 1936, Page 10

DATE OF EASTER

The stabilisation of the date of Easter is a subject upon which there has been a great deal of discussion in recent years. By an Act of 1928 the British Government decided that Easter should be observed on the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April, but with the provision that the Act sfiould not come into operation until all the various authorities had been consulted and had agreed. As the Archbishop of Canterbury recently pointed out there are 82 Churches and Communions throughout the world in favour of a reformed calendar and a fixed Easter, but there remain the Orthodox Church, about the consent of which he was not sanguine, and the Roman Catholic Communion, the largest of all. Personally, while he had a dislike to changing old customs unless there were reasons to the contrary, he had found it impossible to resist the proposal for reform in this matter which came with practical unanimity from all the industries, trades and commerce throughout the civilised world. In the opinion of some of the keenest advocates of change, the question is bound up in that of unifying the calendar. The Committee for Communications and Transit of the League of Nations has had before it two proposals for calendar reform, one for a year of 13 months and the other for a year of 12 months. Lord Merthyr informed the House of Lords that if either was adopted it would remove the obstacles to a fixed Easter. The committee which reported some four years ago that public opinion was not prepared for immediate change will meet again this year and probably another attempt will be made to 'secure unanimity, though British committees have reported strong public objection to a 13-month year.