DAYLIGHT SAVING

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 138, 7 December 1918, Page 11

DAYLIGHT SAVING

TO HE BDITOB. I Sir,—One often hears * good deal of rubbish about daylight saving. Oldfashioned people talk about tampering with the clock. It is just as well to note how we actually stand in the matter. New Zealand at present has a time of "mean longitude. It is a time a ship at sea would take, and New Zealand has been more or less "at sea" ever since she took this time. What other times are there?

(1) Scientific time—-That ia what the astronomers and science societies are asking for. It means practically about half an hour's more daylight throughout the year for Wellington and Auckland and correspondingly more or. less for other places. (2) English, time—-That adds one hour in summer. Taking scientific time and summer time together^ one arrives at the result that an Englishman of the present day in London gets li hours more daylight in summer than a man in WelMngiton or Auckland. That is, supposing they were in the same latitude. Actually }the difference is more. We cannot help our latitude : we can out clock!

(3) Logical time—That would make daylight correspond with our ordinary work-a-day- hours. It would mean putting the clock forward three hours throughout the year.

We are not logical, and are never likely to get logical time : but we ought to get rid of the difference of li hours between summer time in London and summer time in Wellington and Auckland. Pretty -well all civilized nations in these latitudes have taken over summer time. It is convenient, and reduces the cost of living. Australian papers say that Tasmania has proclaimed lightsaving for this summer. On the Australian Continent there is loss to be gained by the lightsaving' bill, in Queensland latitudes nothing. There are no long and ahort days. But light-saving means a positive loss throughout the continent in the shortening of the "cool of the evening." To a people who, in a warm climate, still cling obstinately to the 'habits of a cold one this shortening of the "cool-of-the-evening" means a positive loss in health and convenience against which the Australian is willing to pay a good deal. He pays a good deal for his "grandfather's clock," but gets something in return. The New Zealander also pays a good deal for hi g -grandfather's clock, but gets nothing in return 1 His sun is a beautiful sun,, which he wants to keep up of an evening, not to hasten down. Auckland, perhaps, may be apathetic about the light-caving Bill. There is } no doubt about the rest of New Zealand. Mr. Sidey has.often told us what Dunedin thinks; about it; an East Cqast town suffering frpm the present eccentric New Zealand clock has boldly proposed, like a historic town 9n the Rhine, to take the law into its own hands and proclaim a local time. That, however, is difficult in thrje days of railways and telegraphs, though "bush time" in New Zealand is a yery old institution, »nd some factories and isolated families maintain a I time of their own^ The opposition to a more rational time in New Zealand is said to come mainly from the farmers. They were ever conservative, and being habitual early risers the present costly New Zealand clock | makes little difference to them. In the town and hamlet it is otherwise. An early riser is a nuisance to his surroundings, and soon finds himself out of tune with his social surroundings. But every summer's evening the community puddles about in the dark and burns a hole in its pocket to pay for the I lost one and a-half hours of daylight. | Gone are the delightful summer evenings of England and of France in these latitudes! The active opposition /to the lightr saving Bill centres in the mothers and milkmen of New Zealand,, The mother j to a lot of young children gets no peace till they are put to bed and asleep, and, like chickens, they won't go to sleep till the sun is down. Keep up the sun for one and a-half' hours longer and the mother loses one and a-half hours out of her short period of restful day! And why should the milkmen be deprived of that beauty sleep to which he has been accustomed from" time immemorial in New Zealand? As a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence, it would pay New Zealand handsomely to pay over two or three fivers a summer to every milkman and mother of young children, if thereby the country got rational English time here. Not long ago an English lady wrote out to New Zealand : "The one good thing we have got out of this war is summer time." —I am, etc., GRANDFATHER'S CLOCK.