This reform will cause a change of nearly 13 hours—­that is to say, 12 hours plus the difference of longitude between Rome and Greenwich, if the meridian of Greenwich is designated as the new initial point of the universal date.  I do not believe, however, that you will adopt this choice irrevocably, since its curious and strange consequences may be shown by one example, which I will adduce:  This table is of about sufficient extent to allow the difference between the geographical longitude of its two ends to be observed and appreciated.  Let us suppose that these sessions were held at Greenwich, and that the table were placed east and west, so that the meridian intersected it lengthwise; let us further suppose that we had agreed to reckon the new universal time by this meridian—­that is to say, by that of Greenwich—­and that, in signing the protocol, we wished to set an example to the world by using the universal date, the present civil date and the future civil date, which, by the daily use of the universal date, the nations will or may finally accept, to the exclusion of all others, for the ordinary purposes of life.  Well, now, gentlemen, we should bring our own choice into discredit.  We could not sign, according to these three dates.  As regards the last, we should find that half the table and half the Congress were under one date, and the other half under another; even our chairman, if seated in the middle, would find that he had been presiding over our sessions with his right side in one day and his left in the next.

I may be told that this would happen, whatever might be the meridian chosen, but we could afford to allow it to happen at sea, or in some isolated and uninhabited region where congresses never sit, and where no ray of civilization ever penetrates.

But to return to the reform, what are you going to do?  I will say that if, instead of the meridian of Greenwich, you designate the anti-meridian for the reckoning of universal time and for the initial point of cosmopolitan dates for the present, but for the future as the initial point also of local dates, the reform will amount to about an hour only, but it will still be a reform.  In a word, the anti-meridian of Rome is the one which now furnishes dates to the entire world, and you propose to make the meridian of Greenwich or the anti-meridian do so in future.

I therefore tell you, if you desire a common hour for postal and commercial purposes, designate no meridian at all; let the railway and telegraph companies, the postal authorities and the governments make an arrangement and select an artificial hour, so to speak, whatever it be the hour of Rome, London, Paris, or even that of Greenwich, but do not make a premature declaration which will be an authoritative one as emanating from this Congress, an apparently insignificant reform, but in reality one of very great importance, since, giving the preference to determinate localities in the face of what is scientific, historical, and logical, you render difficult, in the future, the adoption of that very reform, which will, perhaps, then be more necessary, and which can perhaps then be introduced more intelligently.