DAYLIGHT SAVING.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7740, 24 June 1916, Page 1

DAYLIGHT SAVING.

A WAR ECONOMY. AN HOUR WORTH £2,500,000. LONDON, May 9. By a vote of 170 against 2, in a very “thin” House, the Commons yesterday passed the following resolution:— That in view, especially of the economy in fuel and its transport that would be effected by shortening the hours of artificial lighting, this House would welcome a measure for the advancement of clock time by one hour during the summer months of this year. War is a rapid educator, though not so rapid in England as in most other countries. Eight years ago Mr William Willett opened a daylight saving campaign, and framed a hill to compel us to make more use of the earlier hours of the day, and thus save money on our bills for artificial light. His proposal met with little or no favor, and, indeed, many people did not hesitate to credit Mr Willett with having a large-sized “ bee in his bonnet. ” Now 170 members of Parliament have voted in favor of such a hill as Mr Willett proposed, and only two against it. The result is that iii less than a fortnight .this country will start to save the daylight Mr Willett loved so much. The Home Secretary explained to the Jiouse the procedure which the Government intended to follow: A short bill will be brought in at once, and if passed, the clocks will all be put on an hour at 2 a.m. on Sunday, May 21st. That hour has been chosen because it will cause the railways the least inconvenience. The railways, the post office, the municipal and ecclesiastical authorities will all put on their clocks. The new time will be applied by a simple change in the law to all factories, licensed house, etc. The change will be for the war only. Then the subject can be reconsidered in the light of actual experience. On October Ist the clocks will all be put back an hour, and “the evenings will be shortened with a jerk.” MILLIONS TO BE SAVED. Though the public generally do not seem to be able to appreciate the fact that a really big national saving can be effected by the proposed raid on our clocks, it is beyond question that the vote in the Commons accurately reflects the considered opinion of the general conference of railway managers, 740 city corporations and district councils, eighty-eight chambers of commerce, fifty-nine trade unions, forty-seven branches of the Shop Assistants’ Union, and some hundreds more of public bodies and associations. Moreover, the scheme is already in operation in Holland, as well as in the German and Austro-Hun-garian Empires, which enemy Powers look to save thereby between them twelve millions sterling for the purpose of the war; and France, Italy, Denmark, Norway and Sweden are proposing to take a leaf out of the enemy’s book in this matter. It is interesting to us to note that the daylight saving plan, which originated with an Englishman, has actually been put into practice by our chief enemies a week before its discussion by our own Parliament. It is possible, as the Home Secretary remarked, that we may be the last, nation of Western and Northern Europe to adopt Mr Willett’s proposal. It is all the more possible since the Government have decided to make the change by means of a hill instead of by an order under the powers they possess for the duration of the war. Even if the hill is passed this week, it means that the country will have spent upon artificial lighting many thousands of pounds more than it would have spent if we had acted as soon as the Germans, and will have devoted to that purpose a correspondingly large quantity of coal for lack of which our own and our Allies’ factories are gravely impeded in their working. The output of coal in Great Britain is still on the decline; the demand for it is more and more urgent, so when it is estimated that the saving of coal under the scheme would probably run into millions of tons, it is impossible for the Government to hesitate, or for the House of Commons to disregard their recommendation of the plan as “advantageous for the better prosecution of the war.” It is stated that the national saving effected between May 21st and October Ist—four months and a few days —will 1)0 at least £2,500,000, and that if we had started “daylight saving” a month earlier we might have saved fully four million pounds.