Year Of Thirteen Months

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1028, 19 July 1930, Page 8

Year Of Thirteen Months

PROPOSED CALENDAR REFORM

IF the objective of the International Fixed Calendar League becomes established fact school children, perhaps of the next generation, will not require to learn that troublesome rhyme “Thirty days hath . . . ’’and so on, which someone invented as an adventitious aid for memorising the vagaries of our ragged calendar. The movement for a year having 13 months each of 28 days and a fixed Easter appears to be gaining ground both in the economic and religious world. Chief opposition comes from the Jewish nation and the Seventh Day Adventists.

“'The first five months of 1930 have been marked by further substantial progress in the movement to improve the calendar,” states the National Committee of America on Calendar Simplification in a report: “Several additional countries have set up thennational committees on calendar simplification, so that at present 22 nations are in readiness to participate in the international discussion of the question set for next year by the League of Nations at the Fourth General Conference on Communications and Transit at Geneva.

“Public interest has been particularly stimulated by the announcements of additional concerns which have this year begun the use of the 13period business calendar. One magazine the “Ozark Life of Arkansas.” not only has adopted the 13-period calendar for business purposes, but will issue 13 times a year. "Significant of the progress abroad was the announcement of the results of a survey on calendar reform con ducted by the International Railway Union among European railways. Of the 59 companies which are membeis of the union, 49 replied in favour of improving the calendar, with a majority favouring the adoption of the 13month plan.” Another development of - international interest was that the Universal Postal Union, composed of the post office departments of nearly all the Governments of the world, would place its transportation statistics on a 13-period basis effective July 1. The only active opposition to calendar simplification continued to be confined to a small religious minority composed of Jews, Seventh Day Adventists and Seventh Day Baptists, continued the report. The Jewish League for Safeguarding the Fixity of the Sabbath, led by Orthodox rab-

bis, was seeking to raise a fund of 100,000 dollars to defeat the League of Nations fixed calendar proposals, particularly the 13-month fixed calendar. A similar Jewish organisation had been established in Europe. The Seventh Day Adventist headquarters was distributing literature attacking the 13-month calendar, containing arguments which their clergymen were using as a topic for sermons and in protesting letters to the Press. These arguments were economic as well as religious, and were apparently advanced in an effort - to appeal to the public on non-religious grounds, since the great, majority did not share the beliefs of this sect. In the matter of religious questions involved in calendar reform, the questionnaire authorised by the committee among Protestant ministers was pro ceeding in co-operation with the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. Seventh Day Adventists and Seventh Day Baptists were included in the inquiry. Thus far the returns showed that 80 per cent, saw no objection on religious grounds to the adoption of a fixed calendar through the insertion of specially named days causing the Sabbath to fall once each year on an eighth day and twice in leap years. Excluding the Seventh Day Baptists and Seventh Day Adventists, whose opposition was unanimous, the returns showed that S 5 per cent, of the ministers had no religious objection to this provision for fixity in the calendar. The position of the Roman Catholic Church, as officially expressed to the League of Nations, was that it saw nr. objections from the point of view of dogma, hut as regards the traditions of the Church would submit the question and that of the fixation of Easter to an Ecumenical Council, provided it was shown that a change was demanded for the general good.