December 25, 1919] 



NATURE 



415 



modern appliances and labour-saving machinery. 

 They are being rapidly extended and developed, 

 and are certain to exert a profound influence on 

 the industry of the East, not only in India, but 

 also in Ceylon, Java, Manchuria, China, Japan, 

 Australia, the United States, the Argentine, etc., 

 with all of which countries they are building up an 

 export trade in iron and steel castings, machinery, 

 fencing wire, nails, tools, galvanised products, 

 tinplate and enamel ware, etc. An interesting 

 feature is the description of what is being done 

 to promote the intellectual and physical well- 

 being of the workers by the provision of hospitals, 

 convalescent homes, schools, co-operative stores, 

 credit societies, an industrial bank, a concert hall, 

 a restaurant, a reading room, etc. 



There can be no question that India is on the 

 €ve of most momentous changes, political, social, 

 and industrial — changes which have been largely 

 affected and accelerated by the war. All who are 

 interested in her future will do well to study care- 

 fully this official account of her present industrial 

 position. It will amply repay perusal. 



THE REFORM OF THE CALENDAR. 



THOSE who have concerned themselves with 

 the question of a reformed calendar will find 

 much interesting matter in a report ^ published 

 by a committee which was appointed early in the 

 I year by the Paris Societe d' Encouragement pour 

 r Industrie nationale. In 1884 the Abbe Croze, 

 chaplain of La Roquette prison, suggested a com- 

 petition of schemes to M. Flammarion's journal, 

 L'Astronoinie, and presented anonymously prizes 

 to the value of 5000 francs, with the rather in- 

 compatible conditions that the first day of the year 

 should be always a Sunday, and that the week 

 of seven days and the year of twelve months 

 should be retained. From that time until the out- 

 break of war, enthusiasts had been making pro- 

 posals, and, though they had reached little agree- 

 ment among themselves, they had succeeded in 

 1910 in inducing the International Congress of 

 Chambers of Commerce at London to pass a reso- 

 lution in favour of reform, and the Swiss Govern- 

 ment to promise diplomatic action. The projects 

 have been reported from time to time in these 

 columns. Since the close of the war, proposals of 

 the kind have been renewed, and the report of 

 the French committee is a useful document. 



For the Western world there are two calendars 

 of importance existing. There is the Gregorian 

 calendar and there is the ecclesiastical calendar, 

 ' founded on the Council of Nicea, which rules the 

 novable festivals of the Churches. Hence there are 

 'wo quite distinct questions before the reformers. 

 One is to remove the conventional luni-solar 

 element from the latter, and to fix Easter so far 

 as possible relative to the Gregorian calendar. 

 Another is to reform the Gregorian calendar itself, 

 more or less drastically. But yet a third plan has 

 been proposed by a French engineer, M. Paul 



' "Commission pour la r^forme du calendrier." Bulletin de la Soci^t^ 

 (i Encouragement pour I'lndustrie nationale, tome cxxxt., p. 70, 



XO. 2617, VOL. 104] 



Delaporte, which consists practically in ignoring 

 these questions and in using a special subsidiary 

 calendar purely for the purposes of industry. 



The French committee, under Gen. Sebert, has 

 formulated a number of resolutions which appear 

 sensible and on the whole conservative. This is 

 perhaps natural, in view of the peculiar French 

 experience of ill-considered calendars. It supports 

 the proposal to keep the variation of Easter within 

 the narrowest possible limits — a week instead of 

 a lunar month. This view has the assent of all 

 lay opinion, and it is believed that it is no longer 

 opposed by any ecclesiastical authority. On this 

 point agreement in detail should be reached 

 quickly and carried into effect without delay. 

 Another resolution favours the substitution of the 

 Gregorian for the Julian calendar, a hope which 

 political events may have brought nearer to 

 realisation. On the general manner of reform 

 the committee expresses itself in favour of the 

 continuity of the week. This excludes at once 

 a number of schemes, the latest of which was 

 proposed by M. Deslandres. At the same time, it 

 threatens to make the change so slight as scarcely 

 to be worth making at all. But it leaves open such 

 a possibility of a perpetual calendar as the 

 succession of thirty-five, twenty-eight, twenty- 

 eight days in the month, with thirty-five days in 

 December when the date ends in o or 5 

 generally and twenty-eight days in all other years, 

 with the addition of those dates ending in twenty- 

 five and seventy-five and those divisible by 400. 

 This rule is not more complicated than the corre- 

 sponding Gregorian rule, and the objection lies 

 not so much to the variation in the length of the 

 year as to the unequal months. Of course, a 

 symmetrical calendar is out of the question, and 

 no change in the present system can offer serious 

 advantage without raising some such objection 

 and meeting with firm opposition in consequence. 



M. Delaporte, mentioned above, is properly 

 impressed with the difficulty of ousting the present 

 calendar, and suggests his scheme as ah auxiliary, 

 not as a substitute for it. Strictly speaking, his 

 project does not seem to be a calendar at all, 

 because it lacks continuity. He takes the 

 Gregorian year as he finds it, and divides it from 

 the beginning into thirteen months of four weeks 

 each. This is the Comtist calendar without trim- 

 mings, but the one or two days at the end of the 

 year must be provided for "a part." He furnishes 

 in the report different mechanical and tabular 

 modes of exhibiting the correspondence between 

 his scheme or " Chronos " and the Gregorian 

 calendar for a year. He claims that the method 

 of reckoning weeks continuously through the year 

 has i>roved itself advantageous in industrial prac- 

 tice. It is very possible. No doubt the advan- 

 tage would be increased by uniformity of practice 

 secured by agreement over a wide area. But 

 the ordinary diary gives for each date the number 

 of days elapsing from the beginning of the year, 

 and if on this basis a business man cannot divide 

 up his year to suit the requirements of his calling, 

 suggestions from outside will scarcely help him. 



