CLOCKS AND DAYLIGHT

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 404, 12 July 1928, Page 13

CLOCKS AND DAYLIGHT

alternatives for SUMMER TIME VARIATIONS IN DOMINION Speaking at a meeting of the astronomical section of the Auckland Institute last evening Mr. E. a. Jones suggested that it might be better to supersede the present daylight saving scheme by putting the clock forward half an hour in summer and back half an hour in winter. lie also explained why the system liad been go successful in England and yet had pot been adopted in Australia. As New Zealand was nearer the equator than England, he said, there was not the same difference here between the length of day and night at the extremes of summer and winter. Similarly Australia was nearer still to the equator, and the days and nights being more nearly equal there was less need for daylight saving. The idea was that daylight saving was worth more the further away one was from the equator, and therefore it was of more benefit to the South Island than the North. “Even though our watches show 12 noon, that does not mean the sun is crossing the meridian,’* the lecturer said. The clock time might be as much as 15 or 16 minutes out. Again, there was a difference of three-quarters of an hour between solar time at the East Cape and at the extreme west of Southland. In the early days of New Zealand each province had its own time, until in 1868 a new uniform time ior the whole of New Zealand was introduced by Sir James Hector. The average meridian of 1721 deg. E., which was chosen, passed exactly through Lincoln, which was the only village in New Zealand that had the correct time. At the East Cape at certain periods clock time might be 40 minutes ahead of the correct local ;ime, and nobody said a word about it, because they did not know.