The Hawera Star. MONDAY. MARCH 12, 1928. OUR SUMMER TIME PLEBISCITE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 12 March 1928, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

MONDAY. MARCH 12, 1928. OUR SUMMER TIME PLEBISCITE.

Delivered every evening by 6 o’clock in Hawera. Manaia. Normanby, Okaiaua, Eltharn, Mangatoki, Kaponga; Alton, Hurleyville Patea, Waverley, Mokoia. Whakamara, Obangai, Mereinere. Fraser Road, and Ararata.

Last week readers were invited to answer .the question, "Do you favour the continuance of 'Summer Time?” This invitation, with its accompanying coupon for the recording of a vote, was first published last Saturday week, and it was withdrawn from the columns of "The Star” after Friday’s issue. During the first three days vote? came into the office very slowly and ,by Wednesday l night they totalled only 100. We published the figures on Thursday—3l in favour of the reenactment of Summer Time and 69 against—and thereafter there set in a deluge of voting papers until the time of the 'closing of the poll on Saturday night, when the total stood at 789. 'The count revealed an overwhelming 1 majority l against the continuance of daylight saving in future summer seasons, .the figures being:— In Favour 278 Against 511

The Star” was first moved to take this referendum by the uncompromising attitude, adopted by' Mr T. K. Sidey, M.P., Parliamentary "father” of the Summer Time Act, in regard to the suggestion that the popularity' of the Act should be tested .by a plebiscite taken over the whole of .the Dominion at the time of the next General Election. Mr Sidey, after stating that the new arrangement had worked more smoothly than even he had anticipated for its first season and that it had resulted in great benefit to the majority of the people, said in very plain terms that he would not favour the people being given an opportunity' to say for themselves whether they—or at least a majority of them—desired that they should have more of those "benefits” next summer. He considered that the Act had earned its right to a permanent place on the Statute Book. Though we were of those who favoured a season’s trial being given Mr Sidey’s daylight saving measure, we confess we are not so confident as he appears still to be that the Act has proved an unalloyed success. The primary producers who had looked upon any proposal to "interfere with the clock” with the deepest suspicion, have not all become, during the period of the operation of the Act, ardent advocates of making the .change a permanent feature of the summer season. On the contrary, as summer time approached its termination, the farmers seemed to be fully convinced that all the fears they had voiced before the measure was enacted had been wellfounded. That impression of the feeling of the man on the land was, necessarily' for .townsfolk, largely gained from newspaper correspondence and speeches made at farmers meetings. On the other hand, individual farmers could be met who would unhesitatingly support the Act and there were others who had been so little affected by the operation of the measure this summer that they frankly stated they' did not care what happened to the Act at the next session of Parliament. Having been rendered a ljittle .suspicious of IMr .Sidey’s own belief in the "(benefits” by his refusal to listen to the suggestion of a plebiscite, and realising the hopelessness of obtaining anything approaching a consensus of opinion by any' other means, we adopted the plan of conducting a ballot on our own account as ia means of arriving at some idea of the strength of anti-daylight saving feeling among farmers and also among other sections of the people of the district. If only a hundred persons had voted, we would still have obtained an idea of the proportion of supporters to opponents of the measure. With the result of a vote of nearly 'BOO residents of South Taranaki before us, it is still easier to determine one cr two of the points in regard ’J the continuance or discontinuance of daylight saving which have been exercising the minds of many people. . For our ow r n part wo have suspected j for several weckg that if the question

were made the subject of a plebiscite throughout the Dominion, it might be found that the women voters in the cities and towns would largely join issue with the opponents of the Act in the country and thus ensure its defeat. We may be wrong in our assumption, but we incline very much to the belief that there are innumerable women who have experienced very little pleasure and a great deal more fatigue as a result of the enactment of daylight saving; we are thinking more particularly of the mothers of tennis players and the wives of bowlers, but there is a large army of women in hotels, boarding houses and other spheres of domestic service who have probably not received the same benefits from the extra hour of daylight as have those who have been free to go from the shop and the office to the beaches, tennis courts and other places of recreations which offer full scope for enjoyment of extra daylight. In an endeavour to see a little further into the minds of the public we made an analysis of the voting in its relation to avocations, with the following interesting results: — 1

Under the heading of “Town” we grouped all those who were engaged in occupations not connected with the land nor with domestic service. This i group includes all those who showed their occupation to be any one of the trades or professions, irrespective of whether they were domiciled in Hawera or in some rural area. Within this section came ■ doctors, (lawyers'# .civil servants, clerks, linesmen, railway employees, shop assistants, plumbers, butchers, labourers (other than farm labourers), salesmen, etc. In order to ascertain the proportion of supporters to opponents, among the .ladies we placed votes recorded by persons giving their occupations as “ married,” “household duties,” “at home,” ‘‘domestic service, ’ ’ etc, under the “Domestic” section. Many of the ladies ’ votes went to swell the total of the farmers’ section, but those were principally votes recorded in conjunction with the husbands, ’ and shown as “Mr and Mrs .” Where a voter described herself as “farmer’s wife,” her vote was added to the total of the domestic section. It will be noted that of the 27,1 votes recorded singly by women, 181 were cast in opposition to daylight saving. Another significant feature of the voting revealed by the analysis is that of 511 votes cast in the" negative, 453 were recorded 'by farmers and by women engaged in household duties.

The -figures given above will not make cheering reading for those who hope to see “Sidey time” occupy a permanent place on our Statute Book, but they will have to ask themselves, “Does summer time actually make living conditions more arduous for any considerable number of our people not necessarily a majority?” If those persons who, up till the present, have favoured the Act from a personal point of view, cannot honestly answer the question in the negative, then they should set about revising their opinions, always bearing in mind that standard time inflicted no hardship on anybody.

Yes No Farming 24 272 162 55 Domestic ..... 90 181 Dairy Factory 2 3 Totals 278 511