DAYLIGHT SAYING.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5194, 21 October 1927, Page 3

DAYLIGHT SAYING.

HISTORY OF THE IDEA. MANY YEARS’ ADVOCACY. Now that New Zealand is at last to enjoy the benefits of Daylight Saving, thanks to the persistency of Mir T. K. Sidey, through eighteen Parliamentary sessions, it is of interest to review the history of the idea to utilise to fuller advantage the longer hours of sunlight which are experienced in the summer months. r Our remote ancestors probably all enjoyed what we now term Daylight Saving; they were up with the sun and went to bed with it; but this waa from necessity rather than from choice;. Probably to Benjamin Franklin belongs the honour of being the first of modern advocates of daylight saving. In 1874 he read a paper entitled “An Economic Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light.” In this he treats the subject from a purely academic point of vie,w, and there seems to have been no serious advocacy of adopting any practical pressure of “daylight saving.” . It will in no way dim the glory of the halo round the head of Mr Sidey to call attention to the; fact that the first known advocate in New Zealand of Daylight Saving was Mr G. V. Hudson. In October, 1895, he brought forward a scheme i,n which he proposed "to alter the time of the clocks at each equinox so as to bring the working hours of the day within the period of daylight, and, by utilising the early morning, reduce the excessive use of artificial daylight which at present prevails.” Two hobrs was the extent to which he proposed to advance the clocks. Like other original proposals, Mr Hudson’s was not well received. Three years later he returned to the attack, the reception accorded his first paper showing the kind of criticism with whiph he had to contend. “My objectors,” lie said, “have not taken the trouble to make; themselves thoroughly conversant with the subject.” Mr Sidey could say the same to-day. In replying to the conservative opinion that it was absurd z to think of altering what had been the custom for so many years, Mr Hudson pointed out that time was “merely an abstraction devised for human convenieince,” and that the day in common use “did not represent any actual time interval existing in Nature,”

FIRST ENGLISH PROPOSAL. Mr Hudson therefore antedated by somQ years Mr Sidey’s proposals, and also any serious consideration of the subject in England. It .Was not until 1907. that a Chelsea builder named ''William Willett aj,red his views on the subject. His idea was to put the clocks on 80 minutes, by four leaps of 20 minutes each, and he met with such support that he was enabled, a year latex, to have his proposals considered by a Select Committee of the "English Parliament. This committee conceded the merits of the scheme, but thought the objections too great. The following year a. report definitely against the scheme was made, and thereafter in England no more was heard of the subject for somq years, ■ although in New Zealand Mr Sidey was beginning his eighteen years:’ battle.

However the second year of the World. War saw nearly every country in Europe adopt the device of putting the clocks forward an hour in spring, summer, and autumn. The motive was quite simply to get people to bed an hour earlier, and out of bed and at work an hour earlier, in order to save fuel for lighting and heating. Germany was actually the first qf the. European countries to adopt daylight saving, the innovation in that country beginning at 11 p.m. on April 30, 1916, the clocks being put back again an hour at 1 a.m. on October 1. France quickly followed suit and Britain was third in the field, iher first daylight saving venture beginning on May 21 in the same year. Now daylight saving is general throughout Europe, Britain in 192’5 making it a permanent institution instead of passing a fresh Act each year. Daylight, saving at Home now be-

gins each year at 2 a.m. on the day following the third Saturday in. April, and finishes on the first Saturday in October. If the day of commencement happens to coincide with Easter Sunday, summer t.ime begins a week earlier. In the United States daylight saving is not general, there being a system of local option about it. The fact of one State having it and neighbouring States not having it has led to difficulties, and, as a whole, as a result of the uncertainty of the movement, may be said to have lost ground in the United States. In Australia daylight saving was given a trial, but the opposition was too strong and the experiment has not again been repeated. DIFFICULTIES DISAPPEAR.

There were naturally many objections against the mbasiure when it was first mooted in England, the arguments of the opponents being similar to those heard recently in the Dominion. Farmers objected to it on the grounds that Labourers would be able to do nothing with the hay and corn harvests until the dew had dried off, thus wasting at least an hour of work. When, however, put to the test of practice, these and other difficulties were proved to have bepn much exaggreated. True it is that a fe*w adjustments had to be made when daylight saving first came into operation in England. „ Tide tables and meteorological observations continued to be based upon Greenwich timg, but it was remarkable ihow easily things adapted themselves to the altered time ; once the clocks were put on hardly anyone was conscious of any difference except ’ when it came to the end of the day, and there was an hour extra of daylight. The only people really conscious of the sudden jump in the time were travellers making an all-night journey in trains at the time when the clocks were put forward. The Railway Department in New Zealand will not have nearly the saw number of difY flcult adjustments to make as was the case in England. FAR-FETCHED OBJECTIONS. Amongst the many extraordinary

objections made to daylight saving perhaps there was none so remarkable as that from Lord Balfour of Burleigh, who, in 1916, opposed’in the House of Lords, “the most absurd and ridiculous Bill that has ever been presented to this House.” He wanted to know wlhat would happen to a good lady who presented her husband with twins, one being born a few minutes before the clocks were* put back and the other a few minutes after; would the actually younger of the twins be older than the actually elder, seeing that he or she by the clock was born sooner ? This difficulty has been got over by legal and other documents in which time matters are expressed in terms which indicate ordinary or summer time. AN AUSPICIOUS BEGINNING. The very first day on which Daylight Saving came into operation in England was most opportune so far as weather was concerned. It was a beautiful, warn, and fine day, and the whole populace rejoiced in having it extended for another hour ; it was a most auspicious start for an innovation which has become a welcome permanency. The reception given to this alteration in the time was very different from what happened in England in 1751, the last occasion on which the calendar was adjusteid. Up till that time New Year had been observed at the time of thei Spring Equinox, on March 25. But it was decreed that, beginning on January 1,1752, the; New Year should commence as’ it does now, and, further in order to put tlhe calendar right, that the natural day fol' lowing September 2 should be Uth September. This was more than the mob could stand, and there were violent protests against having eleven days cut out of one’s life, in spite of the fact that legislation was passed preventing the omission of these eleven days accumulating payment of any money that was due or of the delivery of goods.