SUMMER TIME

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 9 October 1928, Page 4

SUMMER TIME

(To the Editor.) ! Sir, —Your correspondent “To the 1 Point’ ’ is surely seeing red over daylight saving, and judging from the manner in which he has “let himself go” one can imagine that either the cows or the ‘Tdds” would have something coming to them when he finished reading the “Star” to-day and discovered that the Summer Time Bill had even passed the hope of all pessimists—the Upper House. Now the fiery cross will he handed on from Mann tain to Mokau and irom Alton to Okato, and Mr. H. G. Dicitie, despite that he voted against Mr. Sidey’s Bill when introduced this session, and could rightly claim that his \ote “outed” it, must sulier the fate of the innocents of old and be rooted out in the springtime of his career Whyi' Because the Government of which he is a follower has made it possible for the people of the towns to occupy their place in the sun for an extra half-hour each day when the [sunshine is most attractive. Time, that is not a concession to the farmers, who, according to their own statements, are in the sun irom the time it rises until it sets; but' that hardly seems a reason for the attitude of “To the Point” and some- others. His statement that summer time was tried and found to be a failure is to me somewhat exaggerated; there may be proof of that, out so far it has not been submitted., not even to the Dominion executive of the Farmers* Union when making inquiry tliereanent. I do not intend to accept his challenge to “contradict the statement that the producer is the backbone of the country,” but would advise him in that respect to see a. dec cor —not fori the purpose invariably attributed to| that suggestion in the vocabulary of jthe street corner, but rather to ascertain of what use can a backbone be without its surroundings, the brain and the brawn. The medico will probably inform him that its sphere of usefulness would be limited to a museum. And can he imagine the plight of the producers without consumers}’ If hot, let him ask some of the old-timers who [ recall when they sold their butter as i waggon grease. His claims remind me of a story of my boyhood days relating the' experiences of a colony of Ger- j mans settled in Western Canada, who endeavoured to make a living, if not a fortune, from the solitary vocation of making and selling beer to each other. He already knows (or professes to) the townsman’s point of view on the matter of summer time; let him therefore sit down and dispassionately chronicle the reasons for the objection of the farmers who think similarly to himself (not all of the farmers do), stating facts rather' than theories, and the result will be more enlightening than his present effusion. —I am, etc., IN THE SHADE. Oct. 8.