METRIC REFORM.
[To TUE EDITOR 07 TEE "SPECTAT03"1
Sin,—Your readers may not have noticed a. question asked by Mr. Wolff in the House of Commons on July 29th suggesting that Russia, China, and Siam are about to take decisive steps for the establishment of metrics weights and measures. I wish to point out that the question was probably based on an announcement publicly made in Brussels at the Congress of International Associations on May 10th last to the effect that Russia and Siam are preparing laws for com- pleting metric reform, and that China will permit on her railways no weights and measures except her own and the metric system. The formal Report of that Congress has not yet been published, but the announcements are probably accurate, for M. Guillaume is necessarily well informed, being a high ofriniel of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures at Paris. Moreover, the matters in question are no State secrets, but things deserving of the earliest notice, especially in view of next year's Imperial Conference, where doubtless metric reform will have a prominent place. It is interesting to note that the adhesion of Russia to metric reform completes the conversion of Continental Europe, and adds a hundred and sixty-five millions to the number of people who have already accepted it. In Asia also the reported action of China and Siam lays a foundation for the metre which can never be shaken, for no nation has ever rejected the reform after acceptance. When we add to these considerations the fact that all South and Central America has the metre, and that the United States have taken steps towards it, one may well be surprised that the Secretary for Foreign Affairs told the House of Commons that in the absence of information he would make no inquiry, even in view of the Imperial Conference to assemble next year.—
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