Metric Martyrs Win Big
A little known (in America, at least) group of British die-hards has held out against the the raging tide of Euroweenie bureaucracy and stopped the drive to eliminate the traditional imperial measures of pounds and ounces. They call themselves the "Metric Martyrs" - and they appear to have scored a big win in the European parliament.
Britain is to keep its pounds and ounces.
Campaigners are celebrating after the European Commission abandoned its hugely unpopular plan to scrap the historic Imperial measures.
Brussels bureaucrats admitted that forcing traders to use only metric grams and kilos would not be 'good for business'.
The present dual labelling system, displaying both sets of measures, will now carry on indefinitely.
Neil Herron, director of the Metric Martyrs pressure group, hailed a 'monumental victory'.
He dedicated the triumph to the memory of his friend Steven Thoburn, the Sunderland green-grocer who died at 39 as he fought his conviction for selling bananas by the pound.
Mr Herron said: "People power has forced the Commission and the Government to abandon the enforced metrication programme.
"We have saved the pint, the mile, the yard, the foot and now we have saved pounds and ounces. We have stood toe to toe with the Government and the EU and won - and shown others that you can stop the tide of EU legislation."
Under Brussels plans dating back to the 1990s, it would have become illegal for UK shops to display the Imperial measurements after January 1, 2010, with traders facing fines of up to £2,000.
But Industry Commissioner Gunther Verheugan performed a spectacular U-turn when he spoke to a committee of MEPs on Tuesday.
He said research had shown that the intended ban would damage trade with the US, which uses Imperial measurements for many goods.
The metric system was adopted by France during the French Revolution. Don't get me wrong here, it is a very logical system and attempted to place a standard measurement system on all weights and measures. But it is not one whit less arbitrary than the imperial measurement system. It just has a standard decimal system rather than some of the more arcane rules that govern "imperial" measures (how many ounces in a quart?). (The United States does not use imperial units, exactly. There are differences.) The funny thing is that the "traditional" measures were based, roughly (and in varying degrees) on human attributes. Thus the inch was once defined as the width of an average man's thumb at the base of the nail. It is actually a fairly intuitively obvious system, even if it is arbitrary. The metric system is not easily related to the human body. (Then again, some of the antiquated measures are not either. How much does a stone weigh and how tall is a rod?)
World news | Gaius Tuesday, 8 May , 2007
By Lars Walker, Wednesday, 9 May , 2007 @ 6:16 am
Sanity in Europe? First the French election and now this. I must be dreaming.