30 MARCH 1951, Page 4

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

THIS year's Easter weather seems to have done a good deal to strengthen the popular appeal for a fixed Easter, for whatever the elements may have in store for the date which the 1928 Act contemplates— this year it is April 15th—it is hardly conceivable that it can be worse than the fortune Easter holiday - makers experienced last week-end. And by April 15th the countryside will be at least beginning to look green. These will be serviceable arguments for Sir Richard Acland when he introduces his Bill designed to bring the 1928 Act into operation. But there is one point on which two opinions are held. It would, of course, be easy enough to fix the actual Bank Holiday for the second or third Monday in April and let the ecclesiastical festival continue to vary as at present. But that would mean losing the four-day holiday, to which so many people attach so much value. This, it is contended in some quarters, would be a good thing, for it would prevent what is regarded as the profanation of Good Friday by holiday-makers who equate it completely with the Bank Holiday. But would it prevent that? If the cessation from work covered three days only instead of four, the disposition to regard it all as holiday might be greater rather than less.

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