DAYLIGHT SAVING.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 161, 9 July 1926, Page 6

DAYLIGHT SAVING.

i It has been suggested that there is no ' need for Mr. T. K. Sidey's Summertime Bill, since daylight saving could be ! achieved in the towns by an agreement between factories, shops and offices to ! begin work an hour earlier and close an j hour earlier during the summer. This is a ridiculous suggestion, because there would be no chance of an agreement ; covering the whole of the Dominion, and the traveller would never know until | he reached a particular centre whether he would have to observe standard time or whether he would have to set his '• ! watch back an hour. ) Any local agreements would entirely j upset railway traffic and other forms of i I transit, since a train carrying workers : would have to carry them an hour too early to one place in order that they might reach another place according to summer time. The difficulty also of getting even all the employers in one particular centre to agree to put the j I clocks back one hour would be con- j ! siderable. Some employers might observe lone time, while others would observe another. This would cause insuperable difficulties in regard to suburban traffic, i Some such schome has been tried in the j United States and elsewhere, and it i j has proved a complete fiasco, resulting ! in general dislocation of business. The only sensible way to test the proposal to put back the clocks one hour during the summer months is to try it by means j of an Act of Parliament throughout the j 1 entire Dominion. It is urged that the ; I people in the towns want summer time. I while the people in the country want j standard time. It might also be urged ! that people in the towns want protec- ; tion for local industries, while many farmers in the country want lower! Customs duties on goods they use. | Legislation must be for all alike. It | is impossible to have one law for the country and another for tho town. Admittedly." Mr. Sidey's bill is in the nature' of an experiment, and. if found unsatisfactory, it need not be repeated, for it : applies to the coming summer only. It is nt any rate worth a trial.