STANDARD TIME.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue LXXIV, 28 August 1917, Page 7

STANDARD TIME.

AN ALTERATION PROPOSED

• In the year 1868 (says the Wellington Post) on the aecommendation of Dr. (afterwards Sir James) Hector, the New Zealand Government resolved to adopt a standard time, 11 hours 30 minutes in advance of Greenwich mean time. This choice was determined on in the first place because it is a, good mean time for the whole country and, secondly, because, of the simplicity or this number, and in this connection it is to be remembered that it was not until about fifteen years later that the idea of standard times in other parts of the world, based on exact hourly difference from Greenwich, began to be adopted. Against the adoption of a difference of either 11 or 12 hours for1 New Zealand it was argued that either of these would involve considerable departure from the mean solar time.. Recent considerations, it is claimed, have strengthened the opinion that the adoption of a standard time in advance of the solar time is a real advantage to the community, especially in countries in which there is not an extreme variation in the lengths of the day in summer and winter. The subject has been considered by the council of the Wellington Philosophical Society, which, in November of last year, passed a motion urging on the Government the desirability of making New Zealand mean time exactly 12 hours in advance of Greenwich mean time. This change could be made by putting the clock forward one half-hour once for all.

The council claims that an immediate' consequence of the proposal would be a saving m all ■lighting of half-an-hour daily. This would materially reduce the maximum power demand on electric and gas lighting and power plants in the winter time. From a power-supply point of view the alteration, it claims, would be highly desirable, as the overlapping _power and lighting load from 4.d0 to 5 p.m. in winter makes a great and sudden demand on the power plant; and ultimately the alteration would lead to a reduction of capital expenditure, ior it would not then be necessary to provide for the overlapping load at the power station. Briefly put, some of the contentions in tavor of the alteration are as follows • —Direct saving in all lighting of half-an-hour. daily, as well as a saving in capital expenditure on plant and machinery; conformity with international time agreement, for exact hours diffenent from Greenwich; ease of conversion of times between New Zealand, the .United Kingdom, and other countries with less liability of error; the alteration would bring New Zealand into line with the United Kingdom—the whole of the North Island and part of the South Island are now slow on New Zealand time: there would be direct benefit to the individual in the reduction, of the period for using artificial light in the workshop, the office, and the home. It is also pointed out in the report that Greenwich mean time has already been adopted in South Africa, where all clocks were put on half-an-hour, and in Ireland, recently, where the clocks were advanced 25 minutes.