DAYLIGHT SAVING

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3700, 6 October 1927, Page 4

DAYLIGHT SAVING

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 Mr. 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.

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 was from necessity rather than 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 view, 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 around 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 in 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 hours 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 .which he had to contend. “My objectors,” he 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 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 convenience,” .and that the day in common use “did not represent any actual time interval existing in Nature.” THE FIRST ENGLISH PROPOSAL. Mr. Hudson therefore antedated by some 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 aired 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 later, 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 some years, although in New Zealand Mr. Sidey was beginning eighteen years’ battle. However, the second year of the World War; saw nearly every country in Europe adopt the dveice 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 of the European countries to adopt daylight saving, the innovation in that country beginning at 11 p.m. on 30th April, 1916, the clocks being put back again an hour at 1 a.m. on Ist October. France quickly followed suit, and Britain was third in the fold, her first daylight saving venture beginning on 21st May in the same year. Now daylight saving is general throughout Europe, Britain in 1925 making it a permanent institution instead of passing a fresh Act each year. Daylight saving at Home now begins 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 time 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 Stated 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 measure 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 hav 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 been much exaggerated. True it is that a few adjustments had to be made when daylight sav-

ing first came into operation in England. Tide tables and meteorological observations continued to be based upon Greenwich time, but it was remarkable how 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 same number of difficult adjustments to make as was the case in England. FAR-FETCHED OBJECTIONS. Among 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 td know what would happen to a good lady who presenter 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 clocks 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 as far as weather was concerned; it was a beautiful, warm, 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 giveri to this alteration in the time was very different from what happened in England in 1751, the last occasion on which the calendar was adjusted. Up till that time New Year had been observed at the time of the Spring Equinox on 25th March. But it was decreed that, beginning on the Ist January, 1752, the New Year should commence as it does now, and further, in order to put the calendar right, that the natural day following 2nd September should be 11th 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 emission of these eleven days accelerating payment of any money that was due or of the delivery of goods. A QUESTION OF TIME.

There have always been a few objections to Daylight Saving on the grounds that tf is wrong to interfere with the time as set by the sun. But such objections cannot hold water for a moment. The mean time of New Zeaalnd as a whole has since IS6B been reckoned al 111 hours fast on Greenwich, this being arranged by Sir James Hector. But Christchurch is about the only town in New Zealand where this time is really correct by the sun, the clocks in all 'places east of the meridian of Christchurch being behind the true time and all places to the west being ahead. The variation in the true time is as much as 24 min. 18 sec. according to whether one is at East Cape or at the extreme southwest corner of the South Island. Both Wellington and Auckland are nine .minutes slow on the true time. DAYLIGHT SAVING IN WINTER?

Although New Zealand has lagged behind the rest of the world in its beneficial Daylight Saving measure, it still has a chance to set an example to the world in a further and similar reform. A correspondent suggests that Mr. Sidey, having at last triumphed with his Summer Time Bill should devote his attention to ameliorating the lot of the early riser in winter. Why not put the clocks back in winter, he suggests, and allow people to get up. in daylight? The daylight in the afternoon would be curtailed to a corresponding amount and, as there is little enough as it is for winter sports, the proposal is hardly likely to meet with much support.

On Tuesday next residents of Wellington and the neighbourhood can sec for themselves part of the effect of the operation of the Summer Time Bill. On that day the terval between sunrise and 8 a.m.,, will exactly .correspond to the interval betwee nsunrise and 8 a.m., on the morning when Daylight Saving comes into operation, but on Tuesday next there will not be that extra hour of daylight at the end of the day to which we are soi eagerly looking forward to at the lieginning of November. William Willett has already had a memorial erected to him by a grateful people at Home. When Mr. Sidey’s successful persistency is similarly recognised, it is to be hoped that his name will be coupled with that of Mr. Hudson.