Category Archives: Metric Reform

And now for something completely different….

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By Sven

Guest Post

Ok, not completely, as it obviously has to do with the metric system. But we think we have something unique: a detailed—and nearly forgotten—history of one of the world’s most successful national metrications. It will shortly be filed in Metrication Resources, where we hope it will gain recognition as the pride of the collection.

For some years, a couple of fellow metric advocates in Australia had been telling us of a mysterious book. Mike Joy, who had gotten us some excellent measuring tapes and rulers, unlike anything available here, was the first to mention it: If there was any metrication we had to understand, it was Australia’s, and if there was anything about Australia’s we had to read, it was Metrication in Australia, by Kevin Joseph Wilks. His own copy was lost, lent and never returned, but he could put us in touch with the author. Unfortunately, Mr Wilks was down to his last author copy, which he understandably would not part with. He had tried to get the publisher, DITAC, the Department of Industry, Technology and Commerce, to reprint the book, but without success: the copyright was held by the Commonwealth of Australia, so he had no control. We could find only two libraries in the US claiming a copy: one in Los Angeles, unavailable at the time; one closer to home, but after diligent search the librarians had to report the book presumed lost. We were getting the impression—no great surprise—that the one-and-only edition had been very small.

It was another friend from Oz, Peter Goodyear, who finally tracked one down, and scanned the pages for us, giving us our first look. It was instantly clear that everything Mike and Peter were saying was true. (Aside: Peter’s task was much easier than it would have been in the US, because the library copy machine had a USB port. No need to create a huge pile of waste paper, just bring your own flash drive. What a fantastic and blatantly obvious idea. I’m sure this technology is available in the US, but I’ve yet to see it in libraries, or for that matter, aerospace companies. The US may catch up with Oz someday, but until then I am envious.) So, what is all the fuss about?

In 1972, Australia was an imperial nation. In 1982, it was as metric as any on earth. It got from point A to point B, not only in a single decade, but with the support of its citizens, with little trouble, opposition, or resentment—and very few missteps. The monetary cost was small, and recovered instantly. Australians have been enjoying the dividends ever since. This brief book—less than 90 pages in its original form—tells the story. How then did Australia metricate so rapidly, and so painlessly? A number of reasons, but here is one elephant-in-the-room clue, from page one:

It was sometimes asked why the decision to go metric was not reached by referendum. This would have presupposed that people would have had a comparable knowledge of both the imperial and the metric systems and of the impact such a change might have. While metrication has certainly had a massive cultural impact on people in their lives as ordinary citizens it is, nevertheless, a predominantly technical change, affecting commerce, industry, engineering, science and education. For referendum purposes, relatively few people would have had sufficient knowledge of both systems to make an informed decision.

The decision to go metric was achieved through an open committee of inquiry, appointed by the Government, which collected evidence from any person who felt interested or competent enough to give it.

In other words, it was recognized from the beginning that there was more than one way to frame the debate. The magnitude of the cultural change wasn’t ignored, but it wasn’t allowed to dominate the discussion to the exclusion of all else.

Metrication began with an Act of Parliament: the Metric Conversion Act 1970. This was binding legislation that committed the nation to an active program of metrication. Curiously, once this commitment was made at the national level, very little other legislation was needed:

The change was largely voluntary and no new legislation, other than the Metric Conversion Act, was introduced by State or Federal Governments to enforce metrication. In some cases where compulsion was necessary, metric units were substituted for imperial units in existing Acts and Regulations.

A Metrication Conversion Board was formed to conduct conversion at the national level. Although established in law, the Board sought to act as a coordinating service within and between industries and constituencies. What will be astonishing to US metric advocates is that the kind of inertia and obstructionism we’ve become inured to, apparently never developed:

At no stage did the Board seek to force a decision of its own on an industry committee. Instead, each industry, within the requirements of the Metric Conversion Act, decided, by consensus, when and in what way it would be practicable to metricate its industry. To that extent, conversion to metric must be seen as one of the most democratically executed government projects in Australia’s history.

What about the costs of metrication: weren’t they significant, even if only one-time? Here the problem was that Australian metrication was so highly coordinated and well-planned that, ironically, it was very difficult to say. One figure given at the time by metrication opponents was $2,500,000,000:

Even assuming, for a moment, this cost to be accurate, it represented $179 per person or $18 per person per year for ten years which was a small enough cost compared with the benefits which resulted from metric conversion.

One problem with such figures was that they probably included all sorts of things that weren’t really costs of metrication. Petrol pumps (gas pumps to us Yanks), may have been an example: prices were rapidly approaching $1.00 per gallon, at which point the mechanical counting mechanisms then in use would have overflowed. Their replacement was imminent, metrication or not. (With modern electronic pumps, the cost of switching to liters might be near zero.)

One extremely effective strategy for metrication was the “M-Day.”  Each industry would prepare for metrication on a given date, quite often within a year or less, while continuing to do business in imperial units. Dates for related industries were coordinated by the government Metrication Conversion Board. On its M-day the entire industry would switch, sometimes within particular states or regions, but the most successful M-Days were nationwide. So-called “transition periods” were reduced to near zero. The greatest success was in changing the road signs of the nation. Technically, it should probably be called an M-Month, but given the magnitude of the task, it was still spectacular:

One of the most important and publicly visible of the metric changes was the change in road speed and distance signs and the accompanying change in road traffic regulations. M-Day for this change was 1 July 1974 and, by virtue of careful planning, practically every road sign in Australia was converted within one month. This involved installation of covered metric signs alongside the imperial sign prior to the change and then removal of the imperial sign and the cover from the metric during the month of conversion.

Except on bridge clearance and flood depth signs, dual marking was avoided. Despite suggestions by people opposed to metrication that ignorance of the meaning of metric speeds would lead to slaughter on the roads, such slaughter did not occur.

The book is a how-to manual for national metrication. Most of it is an industry-by-industry account of the Australian experience. A wide selection of industries, products, and services is represented: agriculture, light and heavy manufacturing, raw materials, finished goods, health care services, sport and recreation. It is here that the value of the book for today may be greatest: it’s hard to imagine anyone reading through the success stories, and the few failures, without being disabused of the notion that metrication just happens. Nor is it possible to maintain that two disjoint systems of measurement can coexist, anymore than it’s possible to jump on a horse and “gallop madly off in all directions.”

The Maven and I were convinced this was something special, but while we might have shared it privately with other metric advocates, we both wanted a wider distribution. The problem was that it was still copyright Commonwealth of Australia. In its dead tree form it was very nearly a lost document, but it dealt with matters that should be of some national pride to Australia. Throwing caution to the winds, we decided to contact Canberra about the possibility of an electronic distribution. DITAC, the original publishing agency, no longer existed, but finding the proper people to speak with was fairly simple, and we were pleased and surprised when our request was not dismissed out of hand. We then learned that, even in a relatively civilized universe like Oz, the mills of government grind slowly—but to our amazement, they do grind. We had several indications that things were, in fact, going on, and probably our anxiety made this period seem longer than it was. Actually, it was quite short: a few months. And just last month, we were informed that Metrication in Australia was now licensed under the Creative Commons. Better still, it was “the most accommodating type” of license, allowing us to create a searchable PDF. This turned out to be essential, as the scan files were huge, and we could never have put them up in that form.

The book was formatted in the A4 (ISO 216) paper size. Our PDF retains this, but we increased the original font size slightly, and renumbered the pages as a result. The file is set up for double-sided printing, suitable for four-hole “888” punching, or comb binding. It should also print well single-sided, or on the bizarre “US Letter” paper size if you “scale to fit” (the margins will just look a bit odd). Not that we expect many Americans to try to find a ream of A4 paper, but if anyone still doubts the existence of the Invisible Metric Embargo, it might be an instructive exercise. Yes, you can find it, but online, not at your local office megamart. And lest our Australian friends are cringing: we were careful to have only the Australian English dictionary loaded in the spelling checker during all proofreading, so we’re pretty sure no American orthography has crept in. We’ve tried to make this book as good looking as our limited desktop publishing experience permitted.

Finally, some acknowledgments. To Mike Joy and Peter Goodyear for the initial heads up, a great deal of detective work, and a list of Australian terms that we used as the basis of a short glossary for non-Australians. To all persons involved in this effort, known and unknown to us, at the National Measurement Institute, Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education. (Whew!) We have no idea what was going on behind the scenes, but we suspect it was significant. And to the author, Kevin Joseph Wilks, for having given us this record of a remarkable cultural transformation. We hope it may now inform metrication efforts for years to come. It’s almost enough to make us believe the Land of Oz really has intersected our own space time continuum.

Here is a link to download Metrication in Australia (built 2013-06-24).

Postscript: We’ve been notified of three minor OCR errors in our original PDF file of Metrication in Australia. Two occurrences of modern were rendered modem, and one occurrence of the word be was rendered he in the final paragraph. The current file corrects these. The glossary has also been slightly augmented. (Thanks again to Peter Goodyear.)

If you liked this essay and wish to support the work of The Metric Maven, please visit his Patreon Page and contribute. Also purchase his books about the metric system:

The first book is titled: Our Crumbling Invisible Infrastructure. It is a succinct set of essays  that explain why the absence of the metric system in the US is detrimental to our personal heath and our economy. These essays are separately available for free on my website,  but the book has them all in one place in print. The book may be purchased from Amazon here.


The second book is titled The Dimensions of the Cosmos. It takes the metric prefixes from yotta to Yocto and uses each metric prefix to describe a metric world. The book has a considerable number of color images to compliment the prose. It has been receiving good reviews. I think would be a great reference for US science teachers. It has a considerable number of scientific factoids and anecdotes that I believe would be of considerable educational use. It is available from Amazon here.


The third book is not of direct importance to metric education. It is called Death By A Thousand Cuts, A Secret History of the Metric System in The United States. This monograph explains how we have been unable to legally deal with weights and measures in the United States from George Washington, to our current day. This book is also available on Amazon here.

Testimony from the 1921 Metric Hearings

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Charles L McNary 1874-1944

Selected by The Metric Maven

Bulldog Edition

The metric hearings of 1921 were presided over by Chairman Senator Charles L. McNary of Oregon. During the hearings, a major concern of the Chairman, which he emphasized over and over, was his view that any time limit or deadline to require metrication was a bad idea. Metrication in ten years was just too restrictive and onerous. He argued that any metric transition should be open-ended. Here is what some of the people testifying had to say in response:

Sweden

Mention was made of the time that it would take to do this. I am informed that in Sweden they enacted a similar act; that at the end of 10 years the metric system was to be in force and the only system in force. Then nobody thought anything about it until the ninth year. Consequently, they made a rush and the change was made in one year.

Germany

The Chairman. Don’t you think, Mr. Macfarren, that through a process of education in the schools it would result in the establishment of this system throughout the country, or by the Government leading, or by voluntary effort initiated by large concerns; or do you think it should be established by enforcement through some statute within some specified time — 3 years, 5 years, or 10 years, whatever may be the time provided by law?

Mr. Macfarren. It is undoubtedly the function and the duty of the Government to regulate weights and measures, and this Government has sadly neglected its duty In that regard, and It certainly should take the lead. My only criticism of the bill is that the Government does not undertake within a year or two or three, or much less time than 10, to do all its business in the metric system, and force the contractors who wish to do business with it that much.

As far as this limit of 10 years is concerned, the only objection I have is that it is too long. Germany took two years, and we are just as smart as the Germans.

The Chairman. What time would you suggest for the period of transition?

Mr. Macfarren. I should say five years would be the maximum. Immediately upon such a bill’s passage, or even on the passage of this bill, educational arrangements will be made to see that the next generation will be ready for it. And the saving will be effected for all future generations once and for all.

US

It is a great mistake to agitate in favor of a long transition period. This would mean a long period of watchful waiting, with the outcome that nobody would do anything toward adopting the new system until the time fixed had expired. Such a law would be forgotten before it ever became operative. The United States Government had this experience when the railroads were ordered to equip all freight cars with automatic couplers and continuous brakes. The railroads did nothing toward complying with the law until the allotted five years had expired. The time was then extended two years and seven months, during the last year of which most cars were equipped.

In the United States, between 1890 and 1917, 230,000 railroad employees were killed and over two million injured on the job. Clearly the dangers of being a brakeman before the introduction of the Westinghouse Air Brake was still fresh in the public’s mind and an instructive parable.

US Administration of the Philippines

STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN S. HORD, FORMER COLLECTOR OF INTERNAL REVENUE, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.

Mr. Hord. My experience with the metric system was in the Philippines during the years 1906 to 1910. There was a law enacted by the Philippine Commission in August, 1906, making the use of metric weights and measures obligatory in the islands. At that time I was collector of internal revenue for the islands, and the enforcement of the law was placed in the internal revenue bureau.

The Chairman. The system was enforced upon the people there through enactment of a statute?

Mr. Hord. Yes, sir.

The Chairman. What was the period of transition allowed by the statute?

Mr. Hord. About seven months. The law was enacted August 8, 1906, and took effect January 1, 1907.

The Chairman. Was there any complaint against its enforcement or was it generally accepted in the seven months?

Mr. Hord. None whatever. The only delay, as I stated, was caused by our failure to get the standards quick enough.

Yes, the conversion was done in seven (7) months in the Philippines, by US administrators.

The US Military and Metric

In 1894 the Congress passed a law requiring that in the medical services of the United States the metric system should he solely employed and gave one year for the change. It went into effect on the 1st day of January. 1895, since which date no transaction in medicine, no prescription has been written except in the metric system. It apparently caused no disorder or confusion and could not possibly do so because of its extreme simplicity.

and a portent:

The Chairman. Do you believe in the provisions of this act which attempts to make it obligatory on the people of the country to adopt it in 10 years?

Dr. Parsons. I do.

The Chairman. You do not think it is proceeding fast enough now?

Dr. Parsons. No. That has been shown very plainly by past experience. We are too subject to the inertia of our race. It ls gradually coming. I have not any question whatsoever but what we will ultimately have the metric system and be forced to it by the rest of he world, but I hate to see the American people be the last in the procession.

and

The Chairman. Are there any provisions In this measure which you think should be modified, or that new provisions should be inserted; or do you think that the bill in its present form should be adopted?

Mr. Bearce. I am rather favorably disposed toward the suggestion that has already been made to have this time considerably shortened with reference to the Government: that is, have the bill apply to all transactions of the Government within a shorter period, possibly a year or two years…

The Chairman asked over and over why a farmer should care about metric. He could not see any advantage. Here is how one person responded:

“Did you ever wonder why it is that the boys of the corn clubs and pig clubs, around over the country, are raising better pigs at less cost and more corn per acre than their fathers ever raised? How do they do it? They do it by using a better system than their fathers used. It is not because they are instinctively any better farmers, but because they select better stock and better seed; because they prepare their feed and fertilizer in better proportions, and feed it and apply it in correct quantities. In other words, because they weigh and measure where their fathers guessed.

“As this weighing and measuring continues and increases among the coming generations of farmers, these young men are not going to be content to struggle along with an antiquated and cumbersome system. Many of them are already familiar with the metric system from using it in the Babcock test of milk and cream and in soil and fertilizer analyses. To these young men the complete adoption of the metric system would be an easy step gladly taken.

When Australia metricated in the 1970s farmers profited considerably. According to Kevin Wilks in his book Metrication in Australia:

One of the most useful changes in units used in agriculture was the simple change from points to millimetres of rain. This had particular significance in irrigation work. The simplification that this change brought the ordinary farmer allowed him to make his own irrigation calculations, something that was simply not possible in imperial units.

What was said about centimeters versus millimeters?

If we are going to work in the metric system we will think in the metric system, and you have no difficulty. You know how long a meter is, and you can visualize a meter; you can visualize a millimeter. Very few people pay any attention to the centimeter, as the millimeter is so easy to handle. A thousand millimeters is a meter.

Another thing: In our present system, when we are handling small apparatus, which I have been doing a good many years, the unit of 1 inch, which we now use, is not small enough, and we frequently speak of such dimensions as fifty-seven sixty-fourths. I ask you, can you visualize what fifty-seven sixty-fourths is? You can not. Hardly anybody else can. We don’t know what those things are. and as a rule engineers who are working with these matters every day use decimals instead of fractions; but we would rather use metric decimals than present decimals. If you wanted to write that in metric dimensions you would write 23 millimeters. You can visualize 23 millimeters. but you can not visualize fifty-seven sixty-fourths, because it is a very unusual dimension.

We have. for another example. a working drawing presented by a prominent locomotive company in the United States. It is a side and top view of an ordinary gauge cock. The drawing is full size. The words “all dimensions in millimeters” obviate the need for the familiar abbreviation, m. m. after the figures in the drawing. There are 39 dimensions noted, and not one of these includes a fraction of any kind. If inches had been used in the design and manufacture of this particular American product, only 6 of the 39 dimensions could reasonably have been expressed in an integral number of inches.

 That is. by doing the work in millimeters the inconvenience of 33 fractional numbers and the corresponding involved calculations were avoided. These two illustrations are typical of the saving effected in the measurement of length, area, volume, and in the more involved calculations. It may fairly be said that the more difficult the problem the greater is the advantage in having it worked out in the metric way.

The New System

Rather than accept the metric system, the anti-metric participants submitted a bill to change the US measures over to decimalized US measures. Here is what they had in mind:

Sam’L Russell was not content with the restrictions this table placed upon measurement in the US:

I am not contending for an exclusive decimal system. I believe that we ought to recognize and employ decimal duodecimal and binate fractions of the foot as may best comport with the convenience of trade, fabrication and mechanics. It would be unnecessary and indeed undesirable to restrict ourselves to decimal fractions.

There ought to be the utmost liberty in the use of so-called common or vulgar fractions, every person to accommodate his own convenience in the matter of the division of the foot.

As if the proposals had not created a gallimaufry of new measures, there were also plans to decimalize the avoirdupois ounce. It involved fractions.

Chairman Charles L. McNary would have seemed like a person who would have wholeheartedly backed metrication. His Wikipedia entry states:

Steve Neal, McNary’s biographer, describes McNary as a progressive who stuck with the Republican Party in 1910 even when many progressives left the party in favor of West, a Democrat.[7] McNary backed the Progressive Era reforms—the initiative, recall, referendum, primary elections, and the direct election of U.S. senators— of Oregonian William S. U’Ren, and he was an early supporter of public rather than private power companies.[11] After West won the election, he chose McNary to be special legal counsel to Oregon’s railroad commission; the appointee used the position to urge lower passenger and freight rates.[11] Meanwhile, McNary maintained friendly relations with both progressive and conservative factions of the Oregon Republicans as well as with West.[7]

The entry continues with a laundry list of progressive initiatives which were endorced by McNary.

McNary’s Wikipedia entry is completely silent on the issue of metric. It is never mentioned that he was Chairman of Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Manufactures or A Bill to Fix the Metric System of Weights and Measures as the Single Standard of Weights and Measures for Certain Uses. Why is it that the history of (non)metrication in the US so hidden?

Despite the overwhelming amount of pro-metric testimony at the hearings, and the fact that the bill did not require any manufacturers to use the metric system—ever, the Chairman, Charles L. McNary, argued that metric should be voluntary and gave his reason thus:

The Chairman. If the thing is uneconomical, then the great law or the science of commerce ought to adjust it. It does in other things. Why does  it not operate in this field if everybody is losing by it, from the packer to the consumer? Why does it not correct itself?

It is clear The Chairman was a Metric Philosopher. There was no need to pass this feckless voluntary bill, as metric would automatically happen if it was supposed to happen at all. Clearly it must be done without intervention. The Metric Philosopher’s Philosophy would take care of the problem.  The bill was never passed, and the testimony has been forgotten and left out of our history. What is it about the introduction of the metric system in the US that turns people of a progressive bent in the US, into reactionary obstructionists?

The US has been waiting 91 years following the 1921 hearings for this powerful philosophical juggernaut of inaction, endorsed by The Metric Philosophers, to produce a metric America. It has been 146 years since John Kasson was able to make metric legal in the US.  Every other country in the world (except for the tiny two) exclusively uses the metric system today. Apparently the rest of the world couldn’t afford to wait around for a plan that involved “waiting around for something to magically happen.”  I can’t imagine someone setting up a business, walking away, and expecting it to operate efficiently without any guidance, coordination, or intervention on their part. Why do Metric Philosophers believe this to be the case with implementation of the metric system?  Benjamin Franklin understood this well when he said “Drive thy business, or it will drive thee.”

Related Essays:

How Did We Get Here?

John F. Shafroth: The Forgotten Metric Reformer

The Metric Hearings of 1975 — The Limits of Social Norm in Metrication

A Tale of Two Iowans

Australian Metrication & US Procrastination

John Quincy Adams and The Metric System

If you liked this essay and wish to support the work of The Metric Maven, please visit his Patreon Page and contribute. Also purchase his books about the metric system:

The first book is titled: Our Crumbling Invisible Infrastructure. It is a succinct set of essays  that explain why the absence of the metric system in the US is detrimental to our personal heath and our economy. These essays are separately available for free on my website,  but the book has them all in one place in print. The book may be purchased from Amazon here.


The second book is titled The Dimensions of the Cosmos. It takes the metric prefixes from yotta to Yocto and uses each metric prefix to describe a metric world. The book has a considerable number of color images to compliment the prose. It has been receiving good reviews. I think would be a great reference for US science teachers. It has a considerable number of scientific factoids and anecdotes that I believe would be of considerable educational use. It is available from Amazon here.


The third book is not of direct importance to metric education. It is called Death By A Thousand Cuts, A Secret History of the Metric System in The United States. This monograph explains how we have been unable to legally deal with weights and measures in the United States from George Washington, to our current day. This book is also available on Amazon here.