Thames Star FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 1930. PROPER SUMMER.

Thames Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 17833, 7 March 1930, Page 4

Thames Star

FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 1930. PROPER SUMMER.

"With malice towards none; with charity for all; with firmness In the right, as God gives us to see the right."—Lincoln.

Having succeeded in saving one half-hour of summer daylight for the enjoyment of the public, Sir Thomas Sidey is now looking for a fresh field for conquest. The objective in this case is not the capture of hours, or even days, but q£ weeks of summer weather. iHe has publicly asked the same question which a great number of citizens no doubt have asked each other .in private conversation. Why do we hold our summer vacation during that period of the year when there is practically no summer, and go back to work just when summer is really. beginning? From the beginning of December until well

on toward the end of January, New Zealand weather is very uncertain. Often it is quite ,cold, as-cold, sometimes, as in winter.' Yet it is in these months that we close the schools, declare annual staff vacations - for grown-ups, and hire seaside from which, it often happens, we rarely venture forth for bathing, boating or fishing. The arguments for a February-March holiday season, from the- weather point of view, are. irresistible. The very triumph of the sun makes it the most trying period of the year for children to be shut up in schools. Why not, say, two days' holiday at Christmas, two at the New Year, and then carry on February, when summer vacations in,the real sense could be proclaimed? In fact, Sir Thomas Sidey's suggestion comes very appropriately in a "summer" that once again seems to have been set back into the autumn.