13

1.—15.

H. G. WABREN.

7. Mr. McLaren,] Is your Federation desirous of seeing the hours of employment now established increased? —My Federation has not suggested that the hours of labour would be increased in the slightest. 8. But is it satisfied with the established hours?—As far as I know, certainly. There was no question raised about that. The fact of the men starting an hour earlier without knowing it would not alter the length of the time they would work; and they would have more liberty at the end of the day for their private affairs or their pleasure. 9. Mr. F ratter.] With regard to cables, both to England and Australia, if Australia altered its time with us, then there would be no confusion or difficulties?—l take it there would still be the same trouble between Australia and other countries. 10. By the proposal contained in this Bill the hour and a half difference between New Zealand and Australia would be made two hours and a half?— Certainly. 11. And that, we have evidence to show, would lead to a certain amount of confusion and tiiiuble. Can you say from your business knowledge whether that would be the case?— Personally, speaking from a business point of view, I do not think it would make very much difference. V 2. Suppose that in the afternoon you wanted to cable over to Sydney and to get-a reply the same day, how would it affect you?—l do not see the bearing of your question. 13. You might not be able to get a reply within the hours when the office would be open? —That is possible, of course. It might happen at the present time. On the whole Ido not think it is a very serious matter. 14. There would be one hour's less chance of getting it?— That is so. If). In parts of the country where the telegraph-office closes at 5 o'clock, that would be still more accentuated, because it is only in the large towns where the telegraph-office is open after s?— Equally so, they would get their telegrams an hour earlief in the morning. 16. You admit there might be the trouble I speak of?— Yes, 1 can see that, but I think that is outweighed by the advantages on the other side. George Hogben, Inspector-General of Schools, examined. (No. 7.) The Chairman: Will you make a statement, Mr. Hogben. Witness: I should like to say, in the first place, that I do not come as an advoacte for either one side or the other. I am, however, strongly in favour of using all the daylight we can. Having had to watch for a great many years a certain section of the community at work, and having had raised also in my mind the question of overstrain, I believe that whatever overstrain takes place in regard to education is due far more to the use of artificial light than to all the other causes put together. That includes home lessons, which 1 need not refer to particularly now. The fact that at the age of growth people use artificial light throws on certain sets of their nerves such an enormous strain that lam quite sure their efficiency in after-life is injured. I think the nervous strain and physical strain is really largely in consequence of the strain on the eyes, and if we could work in the daylight as much as possible instead of at night —of course, it is impossible that we should be able to do all our work in the daylight—it would be of great benefit to us. It has seemed to me that that was one important aspect of the matter, but the point is quite distinct from the means that are taken to get more daylight. There is also the question of how much daylight there is People have not got the clear ideas they might have about the amount of daylight that is available for certain purposes. For instance, there is a tendency to speak of our time as an arbitrary thing. It is not an arbitrary thing at all. The particular moment we fix you might call arbitrary, but New Zealand time is not arbitrary. It is eleven hours and a half east of Greenwich Now," the reason for that is that noon is approximately the centre of the day. The mean noon all the year round is exactly the centre of the day. That is taking the middle of the day for the clock and in New Zealand the middle of the day for the clock at Christchurch is actually right. So our time is taken as that of 172£°, because that was assumed to be right for the average of places in New Zealand, and it happens that it is not exactly right for the average of places in New Zealand : 180° would be almost as near for the average of the working-places in New Zealand. I think that something like two-thirds of New Zealand is east of 1721°, and a very strong argument indeed it would be for making out time twelve hours ahead of Greenwich. The clock is wrong tor the whole of the North Island. At Napier it is wrong by eighteen minutes, and at Gisborne a little more. So that if we altered that we should gain half an hour all the year round. Mr. G. M. Thomson: It ought to be done, anyway. Witness ■ Yes from a scientific point of view I think that ought to be done in any case, and it almost seems'to me that is the first thing to do, and then we may see what the effect on the habits of the people would be. With regard to the hours of daylight, Mr. Adams presented a diagram that shows at Wellington—one place—the time between sunrise and sunset; but, as everybody knows, tint is not the full extent of daylight. You cannot take the full extent of twilight either, because the last part of twilight in the evening and the first part in the morning is too dark for any ordinary work or outside exercise. Most outdoor exercises depend on quickness of vision to a certain extent, and you would be trying the vision just as you would by working atnight. So the usual convention is to take half-way between morning twilight-commonly called daybreak-and sunrise for the beiHnnin"- of daylight, and half-way between sunset and actual nightfall—that is, the last of the twilight—for the end of daylight. " I have therefore prepared a table showing, at Invercargill, Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, Napier, and Auckland, at the four times of the year, midsummer midwinter, the spring equinox, and the autumn equinox—showing when twilight begins,