A LONG STRUGGLE

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 68, 17 September 1927, Page 8

A LONG STRUGGLE

(To the Editor.) Sir,—Will you allow me tpace to express the grateful thanks of the indoor worker* to Mr. Sidey for his patient and unremitting efforts to procure another, hour of sunshine for their benefit? He is. one of the very few who have worked for the good of others; he has had no party axe to grind; his work has been for the benefit of many thousands. Even if the Bill were killed by the selfishness of certain persons and sections, Mr. Sidey -will long be remembered for his plucky struggle for the betterment of conditions for the indoor worker. Do the opponents of the reform ever pause to consider just how little of the sunshine the indoor workers do get? Do they realise the conditions under which, many spend the best hours of daylight! I have two young friends earning their; living as typists. One works under artificial light for the greater part of the year; iri an ojfice wLose sole outlook isthe bleak crncrete wall of the adjacent warehouse. Her Bister earns her living also under artificial light in a basement office where the sun never shines. They share a rented bed:siting-room in another person's house. Conditions similar to these are the lot o£ hundreds of thousands of young people who leave school yearly to take up work in office, shop, factory, and workroom. Indoor workers form the greater proportion of the population. They do not work under the health-giving conditions oE the farming class, who have all the sunshine there is. They are not deprived of the beneficial influence of the violet ray which the medical profession dilates upon. ' , . The Daylight Saving Bill was recently dubbed the "Tradespeople's Bill." Tha reason for the cheap 6neer is hard to understand. The tradespeople are just as necessary to the community aa the farmers; every section is dependent on the other, 1 as the farmers found in the 1913 etrike. The farmers are in the minority, and'yet they seek to deprive hundreds of thousands of workers of an extra hour of healthgiving sunshine. A handful of non-progressive politicians is dominated by the farming class, and ono of the greatest blessings, sunshine, is not used for the good of the community as it might be. "The outcry is merely a repetition of that which occurs whenever any innovation is mooted, no matter where or ■what it is. Only a fair trial is asked, which if given would soon prove that all the farmers' terrible difficulties are nonexistenet. —I am, etc., AN INDOOR WORKER. loth September.