THE OUT-OF-DATE CLOCK

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 100, 27 April 1917, Page 3

THE OUT-OF-DATE CLOCK

■. ' ' 10 188 EDITOR: ! Sir, —The times on the sun-dial and ,on the clock rarely quite correspond, and there is no reason why they should do so at all. But it is a, serious thing -when the clock is two Lours behind our work-a--day time; and that is the position in 'New Zealand to-day. A Daylight Saving Bill is a , useful measure of reform, but in New Zealand, where there" are no very long or ' very short' days, why be (troubled with'a shifting clock? Australia got muddled with clock shifting. There is little to be gained by daylight saving in Australia, be-i cause there are no long or short days, in the European sense. •■ ■ , A half hour rectification of time is in the air in New : Zealand. Why not make it an hour?: , All; Western Germany, the most industrial 'part of Germany, has clock time about one hour in advance o? sun dial time: they have Berlin mean time. And this extra hour's daylight is an advantage to industrial Germany, which it' thoroughly appreciates. Not long ago (before the war) I travelled from Belgium to Aix-la-Chapelle in Germany, I got there in. the I evening and thought I should see nothing. Then ■ came the blessed hour of extra day light! , Walking near the frontier next day I met a Belgian and a3ked him Tiow the Germans liked thenextra hour of He slapped his pocket and remarked that the Germans were a frugal people! . Why should not New. Zealand do as well as the Western Germans ? If they can put the clock right by one hour with their short and freezing winter days, it would not be hard for New Zealand, with no very cold or very short winter days, to put the clock forward two hours'. It would cause a little inconvenience to the early risers, but virtue has its own reward, and the world is run for the every-day man, not for the virtuous few. ' Put the clock forward two hours, and then.we get daylight fairly square with our workaday hours of 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. There would then still be one hour's partial eccentricity for those who loved theiV "grandfather's' clock, ''■ and the home feel of a winter's morning just a.s dark asa winter mor:»ing in England.

The rest we all- know in connection with the Daylight Saving Bill, more coal for the railways, and lower house bills for ourselves.—l am, etc.,

UN PAUVRE BELGE.