DAYLIGHT SAVING

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLV, Issue 10163, 18 July 1924, Page 2

DAYLIGHT SAVING

NOT FAVOURED BY MR MASSEY. REPLY TO DEPUTATIONS. WELLINGTON, July 14. A deputation which waited on Mr Massey to urge daylight saving was re preventative of numerous local bodies and sports, both in and out of el HiStoi Members of the. Labour Party were present to gather The speakers were Dr. Comns, Messrs Skerrett, Vickery, and Leadley, the last-named representing the Christchurch City Council. ... In his reply Mr Massey said he was eenerallv in favour of sports bodies. So believed from that point of view there was no opposition on his part to the request of the deputation. He did not know whether there was any opposition at all, but. he had been watching otter countries. Australia passed a Daylight Saving Bill some vears ago, and at the end of twelve months repealed it; and not a single voice in the Legislature was m favour! of ?t when the repeal measure., was going through. He had been told that ff the Act had not been repealed it would have led to revolution. Daylight saving was m operation in Canada after a fashion, but the original legislation broke down, and now municipalities ran it for themselves. It is

a most awkward arrangement, remarked Mr Massey f when I was there, they had two town clocks opposite each other. It was 1o'clock on one clock when it was 10 o'clock upon the other. I happened to time myself by the wrong clock on one occasion, and it resulted in my getting up earlier than I wanted to get up, and I did not like it. MrMas'sey also alluded to the proposal made 'last year to put the clock on half an hour to make New Zealand time exactly 12 hours ahead of Greenwich This would meet the approval of shipmasters, but would not apply all the year round, and that was awkward If a farmer was growing cereals, daylight saving was of no use to him, because he could not start work any earlier than he did at present. He had to wait for the sunrise and to give the corn time to dry before harvesting operations commenced. There were numbers of people who were already observing daylight saving. Nearly all sawmills were run on the principle of daylight saving by putting the clock forward an hour in summer. Some of the mines did the same. There was no objection to that.

Wherever it had been tried m those mldustries it had worked well. What he was afraid of —he might be wrong—was that daylight saving might interfere seriously with the primary industry of agriculture, especially dairy farming. It was upon that industry that we all depended, no matter whether we lived in town or country. Those people already got up at 5 o'clock in the morning. Of course it might be said that under daylight saying it would still be five, but really it would be four, and personally he did not think they would like it. Not the slightest notice was taken of the daylight saving law in England at harvesting time, and he thought the people concerned there were right in that attitude. He considered that there must be explanations or no law would work. He could not support such an all-round proposal as suggested "to remain in operation indefinitely. A