A Fixed Easter
SIR,—A movable Easter is disliked by Janus because you sometimes get a financial year with two Easter holidays in it, which " vitiates all financial comparisons with normal years," and because a school term may occa- sionally contain within it the need for an irregular programme to cope with the festival and its attendant days. Apart froth the fact that many heads of schools welcome the opportunity of Holy Week in term-time once in a way, is immediate superficial convenience to be the sole touchstone by which all tradition is to be judged ? Is ti sort of suburban tidiness in all our concerns an ideal we can aim at without apprehension, in view of many contemporary developments ? Is the " illogical " element in our civilisation a thing to be struck down at sight ? When one reflects upon the widespread disillusionment which has descended upon a world which has made short-term human convenience its supreme goal, the reformer, even of so relatively small a thing as the Church Calendar, thay be justly asked to stay his hand. Is there to be no place left in life for doing a thing merely because our forefathers have always done it ? Are we to change over to keeping to the right of the road because it would be so much more convenient for the motorist who takes his car to France ? Are the monarchy and the second chamber to be abolished because they may impose a check upon the right of some exuberant party to introduce revolutionary changes for the sake of some imagined immediate con- venience.? The Church Calendar, with its combination of solar and lunar reckonings, is a thing which has grown up with our civilisation, like the British Constitution and much else in our national life. Can it really be so extremely desirable to mow it down because sometimes " it vitiates all financial comparisons with normal years" 7—Yours faith-
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