84 SANDFORD FLEMING ON TIME 
It is a significant fact that at the Washington Conference the principle of Universal 
Time obtained unanimous recognition from the delegates of so many nationalities. It isa 
presage that the peoples whom they represent will before long be fully impressed with the 
belief that a system of reckoning time uniformly throughout the globe is really the one 
rational system by which it can be noted, and the only system which will meet the 
demands of the human family in coming years. It is only step by step that a reform so 
great can be carried out. Moreover, although the difficulties to be overcome are undoubted- 
ly serious, this much may be said with confidence, that they are less formidable than 
those which have already been conquered. A few years back the very question of a uni- 
versal time for all nations was a theory not only new in itself but it was held by many to 
be wild and Utopian, and so impracticable as to be unworthy of consideration. In 1878 
the subject could not command a hearing at the British Association! Since 1878 the argu- 
ments advanced to point out the necessity of change have, however, obtained attention, and 
a general movement for reform has been inaugarated. Scientific and practical men and 
learned societies in both hemispheres have taken part in the consideration of the question. 
It has formed the subject of discussion at International Congresses at Venice and Rome. 
The President and Congress of the United States have been induced to take decisive action 
in connection with it. . The Governments of twenty-five civilized nations have aided in 
its development. The International Washington Conference itself has greatly promoted 
the solution of the problem by coming to an unanimous determination on the essential 
principles to be observed. In several countries the recommendations of the Conference 
have already in part been acted on, and changes have been effected which a few years 
back were not even dreamed of. 
If so much has been accomplished within the eight years since the scheme of reform 
was first promulgated, is it too much to expect that the public mind will be prepared in 
the more advanced communities to accept the final step in a like period ? 
In fourteen or fifteen years we pass into another century. Is it taking too sanguine 
a view to suggest that by that time all nations will be willing to accept the change, and 
that the first day of January in the Twentieth Century may appropriately be inaugurated 
by the adoption of one uniform system of reckoning time throughout the world ? 
I learn from the recent lecture of the Astronomer Royal that the Board of Visitors 
of Greenwich Observatory have unanimously recommended that in accordance with the 
resolutions of the Washington Conference, the Astronomical day should in the English 
Nautical Almanac be arranged from the year 1891 (the earliest practicable date) to begin 
at Greenwich midnight so as to agree with the civil reckoning, and further that steps 
have been taken to give effect to this recommendation ; thus in a few years this source 
of confusion to sailors navigating ships using the Nautical Almanac—embracing at least 
seventy per cent. of the tonnage of the world—will be removed. The distinguished 
Russian Astronomer, Struve, has suggested that all astronomers throughout the world 
should simultaneously abandon Astronomical Time and bring their notation into harmony 
with the civil reckoning. He further suggests that this reform should be introduced into 
the publications of observatories at the initial day of the century.’ The same epoch 


! In reference to this the Astronomer Royal, Greenwich, says (Oct., 1885) “it would be intolerable to have a 
fundamental question of time-reckoning left open for fifteen years.” 
