SUMMER TIME NEXT SUNDAY?

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 788, 8 October 1929, Page 8

SUMMER TIME NEXT SUNDAY?

AFTLB the progress of the permanent Summer Time Bill in the House las* Wednesday had been checked by the arrival of the adjournment. Mr. T. M. Wiiford explained that there was still ample time in which to put the Bill through all its stages before the proposed date of its operation. But there will have to be some rapid and effective legislating if this plan is to be fulfilled. The Bill provides for the advancement of the clocks on < icrober 13. which is Sunday next, and there are but three more days of the legislative week remaining. It will be unfortunate if failure to give the Bill precedence --.rises postponement and curtailment of its effective application. There wa- ample time earlier in the session to have the measure introduced and passed, but the session as a whole has not been notable for the smooth development of any carefully-planned programme, and the regrettable indisposition of th* Prime Minister lias not helped matters. Originally it had been hinted *!:a t the Summer Time measure would make its first appearance in the Upper House in the experienced hands of the Hon. T. K. Sidey. Possibly Mr. Sidey refused to accept the compromise of half an hour, and still battled for the full hour which is his ideal. At any rate half an hour is all that the proposed permanent measure embodies, and it is perhaps unfortunate that neither public nor political opinion will for the present b» again tested o>n this T»i?d question of the merits of the full hour or the compromise.

Any measure embodying p-ermanent or even temporary Prevision for the full hour would without doubt have been subjected to the mos* strenuous opposition, but there is no guarantee 'hat a handful of irreconcilable* in the House will not -how the same hostility tr> the measure in its present form. Many of those who fought Mr. Sidey’s original measure to the last ditch last year are not now in the House, but of the survivors of that stubborn band Mr. H. M. Campbell and Mr. A. M. Samuel i ave already shown that they must still insist on having somc'r.irg to say. and Mr. Campbell has actually committed himself to the ridiculous proposal that the proposed half-hour advance of the c-locks should be made to apply all the year round, a move 'hat would confer no tar.cibl° benefits on anybody, and would condemn people in the southern half the South Island to going to t! oir -hop-, fac'ories and offices in artificial light throughout the

: spite of the e • • tl tl • table spirits may - re to off there is no danger that Summer Time will not be passed. The Government, the Labour Party and a 2ood proportion of the Reform Parry are solidly behind the measure. Thee y dang s that, witl time now so short, there nay he a perverse effort to delay- its inception.