Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/332

328 Good Hope House of Assembly in August, 1903. A similar action was taken about the same time in the New Zealand parliament.

A bill for the compulsory adoption of the metric system in Great Britain within a specified period, passed the House of Lords last year, and has also passed its first reading in the House of Commons. The bill was supported by petitions from councils of cities, towns and counties, having a total population of 2,800,000; as well as by trade-unions and other organizations to the total enrolment of one third of a million persons.

In this country, a bill for the compulsory adoption of the metric system within a specified time was introduced into congress in 1903, but was withdrawn. Resolutions in favor of the adoption of the metric system in the United States have been passed by the Franklin Institute, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and the American Electrochemical Society. On the other hand, resolutions opposing the adoption of the metric system have been recently passed by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Association of Toolmakers, and the Association of American Manufacturers. The principal objection in these cases seems to have been the dread of expense in transition.

It would seem to be only a question of time when the elimination of the useless, and the survival of the fittest, will bring about the universal adoption of the system. Even assuming, however, that the change were made officially by the United States government within the next ten years, the existing units would continue to persist in some degree for many years. Thus inch-pipes will doubtless exist in the country for many years to come as a physical reality; even though such pipe should come to be called 25-millimeter pipe. Even at this time, more than one hundred years after the inauguration of our decimal currency, one still occasionally hears the 'shilling' quoted as a price, a relic of colonial currency. When so used in New England, a 'shilling' appears to mean one sixth of a dollar, or 16 2-3 cents.

In time to come, and probably much beyond the date of the universal adoption of the metric system, decimal reform may perhaps extend to other fields. Thus the cumbersome and complex systems of dividing angles sexagesimally into degrees, minutes and seconds, is generally admitted to be much inferior to a decimal subdivision. Some day, perhaps, angles may be expressed decimally all over the world. The day also is divided in a cumbersome way into hours, minutes and seconds. A decimal subdivision of a day would have much advantage over the existing plan. But decimal reform in angles and in time is undoubtedly much more remote and problematical than in weights and measures; nor is there the same exigency for decimal reform in these directions.