CALENDAR REFORM

Taranaki Daily News, 9 December 1931, Page 7

CALENDAR REFORM

PROPOSED READJUSTMENTS. YEAR OF 12 OR 13 MONTHS. A committee is to be appointed by the Assembly of the League of Nations, now meeting at Geneva, to examine two schemes relating to international calendar reform. The purpose behind each of these schemes is to eliminate what are regarded as defects of the present calendar system and to re-model the normal year throughout the world. The alternatives to be submitted to the committee recommend a 12-month and a 13-month year respectively, but in both cases it will be necessary to have a sort of “orphan of the almanac”—a day without a date —to ensure uniformity. An official of the Parliamentary Committee on Calendar Reform, who will present the case for a 12-month year, stated in an interview with a representative of the Observer, London, how the proposed new systems would be applied. “Our plan,” the official said, “is to reduce the year from 365 to 364 days, and to regard the odd day as a ‘supplementary’ day. It would have a name of its own and would always fall immediately after Saturday, December 30, in the new calendar. In reality it would be Sunday, December 31, but as that date would no longer exist, it ,■ would be looked upon as ‘Year Day,’ or ‘New Year’s Eve.’ The following day would be Sunday, January 1. “In this way we would have eight days in the last week of every year. Each quarter would contain ninety-one days, instead of varying, as at present, from ninety to ninety-two days, and the first day of every year, and the first day of every quarter, would be a Sunday. Moreover, the second month of each quarter would always begin on a Wednesday, and the third month on a Friday. 1 “The thirteen-month system, which is favoured in America, but not in Britain, is intended to give a twenty-eight day month all the year- round, so that all similar dates would fall on the same day of the week. That is to say, the Ist, Bth, 15th or 22nd of any month would always be on a Sunday. The system, however, requires an additional month introduced to the calendar. It would be known as ‘Sol,’ and would come in between June and July. “But 13 is an unmanageable number, and that is one of the main reasons why it would not be popular here. It would mean, for example, that Wimbledon and Henley would be held in ‘Sol,’ and that the Prince of Wales’ birthday would be on ‘Sol’ 6. Then again, the 13th day of the month would always be a Friday —an undesirable happening in the minds of superstitious people. “The 12-month scheme, on the other hand, gets over these difficulties and gives equal satisfaction all round. It will also facilitate the compilation of trade statistics, and make comparisons in that way much more reliable than they are at’present, owing to the fluctuation in the number of working days in the calendar we use now.

, “British opinion is in favour of a change, but it prefers to have as many as possible of the 13-month year advantages incorporated in a reconstructed 12-month year.” In reply to a question how religious opinion would regard the last Sunday of each year being deprived of its identity in the form of “Year Day,” the official said: — “Strangely enough, there is very little opposition from religious bodies. What there has been is from the orthodox Jews and Seventh Day Adventists. They are afraid that the new calendar would interfere with their devotions in the first week of each year, but that could be overcome by holding two successive days of worship at that particular Deriod.” 1