CAREER SACRIFICED TO AID SUMMER TIME

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17711, 4 December 1925, Page 8

CAREER SACRIFICED TO AID SUMMER TIME

(Special to the “Star") LONDON. October 17. Colonel Lambert Ward. M.P. for N.W. Hull, hinted yesterday- that he had hindered, and perhaps wrecked, his political career, so far as the Conservative Party was concerned, because of his interest in daylight saving. He was speaking at the Early Closing Association’s Victory luncheon.” at the IJolborn Restaurant, in celebration of the passing of the Summer Time Act. In order to pilot the Bill through Parliament, he said, he resigned his appointment as Parliamentary Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty. “If I have sacrificed my appointment."’ he proceeded, “if I have done myself in with certain leaders of the Conservative Party, still I think I have done my duty by a little Bill that will increase the happiness of a vast number of toilers in the towns and cities.” Mrs Basil Willett, daughter-in-law of the founder of the idea, said it was proposed to acquire, as a memorial to the late Mr William Willett, a beautiful wood at Chislehurst, where he first thought of Summer Time. Mr Winston Churchill, president of the association, recalling the prejudice which delayed the beneficent Act, said that right in front of the Summer Time had stood the British cow. (Laughter.) They all knew how Stephenson answered the question of what woul happen to the cow if it stood in the path of the train, but, according to the latest intelligence, the British cow was still doing quite well. (Laughter.) Nothing but the cataclysm of the Great War and the breaking down of prejudices with the pooling of / national effort would have been sufficient to carry the Summer Time Act, at any’ rate in this generation. This Ac/ might fairly take its place among the more solid and enduring features of our victory in the Great War.