Those who are tired of the debate as to when the third millennium really starts might want to divert their energies to a more important issue - the need to reform the calendar itself. Consider our present absurd system: Of the twelve differently named months comprising our year, seven consist of 31 days and four of 30 days. The remaining month usually contains 28 days, but in leap years it has 29. Furthermore, because of an egotistical action by the Roman Emperor Augustus about 2000 years ago, the "long" months and the "short" months are not even sequentially arranged in a logical pattern. It is amazing that such a jumble has been allowed to persist to the start of the twenty-first century. There has been no change to our calendar system since Pope Gregory XIII invented the version which now bears his name over 400 years ago, in replacement of the Julian calendar brought in by Julius Caesar. Of course, in those distant days papal edicts could be used to institute social changes affecting many countries in a way which is no longer possible. The Gregorian calendar was introduced into England in 1752, despite the shouted protests of the superstitious crowds who mistakenly thought that the change would cause them to die deprived of 11 days which they would otherwise have lived. This calendar was ingenious in that it rearranged the incidence of leap years to allow almost perfectly for the odd fraction of a day in the duration of the period of the earth's rotation round the sun. However, it suffered from a serious shortcoming in that its irregular monthly cycle paid no regard to the fact that a seven-day series of time-keeping - the week - was in concurrent popular use. This meant that no two consecutive years could ever use the same form of printed calendar. Fourteen different patterns are in use today, according to whether 1 January falls on a Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and so on, and depending also on whether the year concerned is a common year or a leap year. The need to reprint fresh calendars at intervals of twelve months is clearly very wasteful, even in this computer age. The business community suffers from an associated weakness. Sales statistics and the like lose comparability when calendar quarters range in length from 90 to 92 days and when half-years can consist of either 181 or 184 days. But of even greater significance is the inconvenience caused to many sections of the community whenever the necessity to determine on what day of the week some particular past or future event happens to fall. To illustrate the absurdity, this lack of uniformity from year to year is a disadvantage both to private citizens planning vacations and to trade associations arranging conventions. It is a nuisance to boards convening shareholders' meetings as well as to governments proclaiming new legislation. In addition, it complicates the recording of regular weekly payments such as wages and rent. Some time ago a new system, known as the "World Calendar", was devised to overcome these defects. Under this system, each year is divided into four uniform quarters of 91 days (13 weeks) each. Each quarter commences on a Sunday and consists of three months containing respectively 31, 30 and 30 days. To make up the required 365 days for a common year, an intercalary "World Day" (suggested as a universal public holiday) is interposed between Saturday, 30 December, of one year and Sunday, 1 January, of the next year. Similarly, leap years have an intercalary "Leap Day" between Saturday, 30 June, and Sunday, 1 July. The World Calendar system would have a number of additional advantages. The equal length and identical make-up of each calendar quarter would help in the interpretation of sales statistics and the like and in the preparation of budgets. The fact that a calendar month would always contain exactly 26 non-Sundays would be a further advantage in that regard. The strict comparability of each month with the corresponding month of every other year (for example, as to the number of shopping days it contains) would similarly be most useful. The ideal starting time for this modern format would be 1 January 2006, as that date is in any case a Sunday under the existing Gregorian calendar. A further useful calendar reform which is not directly dependent on the adoption of the World Calendar could with profit also be brought in at around the same time - the standardisation of the date of Easter. Many people would find it convenient if the date of this event did not wander about as it now does. Easter Sunday under the present system can fall any time between 22 March and 25 April, inclusive - a range of 35 possible dates. To illustrate, under a World Calendar a convenient date for a uniform Easter Sunday might be Sunday, 8 April each year, which is the exact middle date of the above-mentioned range. Even without a World Calendar, Easter Sunday could be standardised to, say, the second Sunday each April. Clearly, under modern conditions the calendar could not be changed in only part of the world without causing chaos. Thus in practice any revision would need international agreement. The World Calendar proposal was seriously considered by the United Nations Economic and Social Council in 1955. It had considerable support at that time, as well as some apathy. However, it was eventually dropped, mainly because of the strong opposition of the parochial United States. This was formally expressed in an official memorandum in the following terms: "The United States Government does not favor any action by the United Nations to revise the present calendar. This Government cannot in any way promote a change of this nature, which would intimately affect every inhabitant of this country, unless such a reform were favored by a substantial majority of the citizens of the United States acting through their representatives in the Congress of the United States. There is no evidence of such support in the United States for calendar reform. Large numbers of United States citizens oppose the plan for calendar reform that is now before the Economic and Social Council. Their opposition is based on religious grounds, since the introduction of a `blank day' at the end of each year would disrupt the seven-day sabbatical cycle." The major churches do not oppose calendar reform and it is unfortunate that a small minority of fundamentalists in one country managed to kill off such a worthwhile initiative. The Australian Government could with profit use its influence to have the World Calendar universally adopted. |