23 MARCH 1951, Page 5

Thanks to the working of those mysterious digits that com-

prise the Golden Number, Easter falls this year almost, if not quite, as early as it is possible for it to fall—for extensive as its vagaries are, they are not completely without limits. One result is that two Easters fall in the financial year 1950-51, which vitiates all financial comparisons with normal years which con- tain only one such holiday-season. It is also singularly incon- venient for schools, which have either to break up unreasonably early or suffer an unduly long interruption to the term. And all for why? All, to speak with perfect reverence, to prevent the death and resurrection of Christ from being commemorated on a fixed date, as His birth universally is. Anything more illogical is difficult to conceive. A fixed date for Easter Sunday—the Sunday after the second Saturday in April—has been approved by Parliament. That would this year be April 15th—by which time spring may be almost in sight. The Act enacting this is on the Statute Book, and has been since 1928, but its application is suspended till the Churches agree. If they were better at that we might achieve the sanity of a fixed Easter.