Daylight Saved by "Putting On" the Clock
Daylight Saved by "Putting On" the Clock is an article published in the Weekly Dispatch on 5 july 1908.
Daylight Saved by "Putting On" the Clock
Mr. Pearce's Bill Tells Us How We May Lengthen the Summer Hours by Sleeping Less While the Sun Shines.
The Daylight Saving Bill is making a bold bid for the Statute-book. Originally scoffed at as chimerical. Mr. Pearce's measure is making friends of its enemies, and has already passed its second reading in the House of Commons, and been strongly recommended by a Select Committee, appointed to hear evidence from all quarters most apparently affected by its provisions. Commercial men, medical men, scientific men, and sportsmen have joined in a chorus of approval. This does not mean that the Bill has been unanimously acclaimed as a boon to humanity. Many weighty names are found on the other side, opposing and even ridiculing the measure. Sir David Gill, for example, described it as a "wild-cat scheme."
The arguments for and against may be summed up as follows:
| FOR. | AGAINST. |
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Saving in the cost of artificial light. This is calculated at £2.000.000 a year in the United Kingdom. One large shopkeeper alone testified that the Bill would save him £347 a year. Great benefit to health all round by giving daylight for practically all work, and more daylight for recreation. Improvement in most classes of work, particularly textile manufactures, where, all evidence shows, work done by daylight is always better than that done by artificial light. Most railways, most scientists, and vast majority of business men in favour of the Bill. |
The dislocation of business on the Stock Exchange. The difficulty of making everybody in the country set his watch or clock forward, or back, at the same moment, and of regulating all public clocks. The difficulties of conducting postal telegraphic, and telephone business with the Continent. The inadvisability of adding to the existing complications caused by Greenwich time, French time, Central European time. The contention that the daylight could be "saved" without altering the clock, merely by legislating for earlier hours of beginning work. |
Astronomer Royal in Opposition.
The principle of the Bill has been supported by seventeen or eighteen of the principal chambers of commerce — for example, London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, Bristol, Sheffield, Wolverhampton, Southampton, Halifax, and Oldham — and by the borough councils of a large number of towns. Evidence has been given in its favour before a Select Committee by eminent scientific men, such as Lord Avebury, Sir William Ramsay, Sir Robert Ball, Professor Rambaut, and Sir A. Conan Doyle.
On the other hand, the Committee has taken due note of the adverse evidence given by the Astronomer Royal, Sir G. Livesey, Mr. Satterthwaite (secretary of the London Stock Exchange), Mr. Duckinfield (of the Liverpool Cotton Association), and the Clerk of the Weather.
Of the railway companies whose representatives gave evidence, the North-Western, South-Western, Great Central, and Great Eastern were all favourable to the principle of the Bill, except that in the case, of the Great Eastern it was pointed out that difficulties would arise in connection with their Continental traffic, which, it was elicited. is .137 of the total passenger traffic and .05 of the goods traffic.
When the Government will take the matter up remains in doubt. The autumn session must necessarily be devoted to pushing through arrears of Government business, so that there is little chance for a private Bill. But now that the Select Committee's report is favourable it is almost certain that a new Bill will be presented in the first session of Parliament next year.
The evidence taken by the Committee shows that the proposals of the Bill would benefit large classes of the community by moving the hours of work and leisure nearer to sunrise, thus promoting the greater use of daylight for recreative purposes, tending to the general health and welfare of all classes, and providing opportunity for great economies in the use of artificial light for commercial, industrial, and domestic purposes.
The Automobile Club and the Motor Union, and many representatives of the shopkeeping classes gave evidence in favour of the Bill, as also did Mr. Appleton, Secretary of the Federated Trades Unions, comprising 125 of the largest Trade Unions in the country (practically all of them, with the exception of the Miners and the Railway Servants), and constituting a membership of 700,000. Other evidence in favour of the project was given by schoolmasters, educationists, and persons representing the recreative interests.
Post Office in Favour.
Mr. Babington Smith, on behalf of the Post Office, declared that as regards the postal business of the United Kingdom, the Colonies, the United States, and other distant countries, the inconveniences caused by the changing of the clock as proposed in the Bill would be so slight as to be practically negligible.
On the question of the best manner of making the proposed changes in time during the summer months opinions varied with almost every witness, but there was found to be a preponderance of evidence in favour of putting forward the clock one hour in April and reverting to the present time is September.
The evidence of the Stock Exchange and Liverpool Cotton Exchange representatives was really the most important adduced against the Bill. The objections are confined to members doing business with the United States. Owing to the difference in time between this country and America there is a period of only two hours every day when the Exchanges on both sides of the Atlantic are open together and when direct trading can be done. The Bill would curtail this time by one hour, and the only remedy would be for the London and Liverpool stockdealers to work an hour later. This they declare they cannot do, for the pressure during the two busy hours is already so great that any extension of the working day (they cannot start an hour later) is out of the question. As a matter of fact, during the eighty minutes in the afternoon when direct telegraphic business is being done between Liverpool and New York between 300 and 500 telegrams are exchanged daily, and the pressure under which the operators work is terrible.
Mr. Willett's Theory
To the ordinary man the Daylight Saving Bill conjures up a veritable comedy of confusion. Tampering with the clock suggests no end of trouble in the shape of trains missed, engagements broken, and late arrivals at business in the morning. But there is no real need for each apprehensions.
Hear what the inventor of the scheme, the pioneer of daylight saving, Mr. William Willett, has to say for his theory. He makes it all very plain and plausible.
"My primary object is not to make people get up earlier in the morning, but to put an end to the appalling waste of daylight which goes on day after day for nearly six month, in the year. I maintain that the only way in which this wasted daylight can be effectively utilised for our enjoyment is by accepting two, three, or four Sundays in April, each rather less than twenty-four hours, such shortened Sunday, to be obtained by moving on the heads of the chick twenty or thirty minutes between 2 and 3 a.m.
"Who will complain that he will be conscious of a difference between a Sunday of twenty-three hours and forty minutes and one of twenty-four hours? Every succeeding day during the ensuing week will be twenty-four hours long. We shall rise and retire at the same hours by our watches as we do now.
"When an Englishman goes to Switzerland he makes his watch agree with local time by advancing the hands one hour. He does not go there in order to get up an hour earlier, nor, in fact, does he ever consider that he is doing so. Why should he therefore be so foolish as to regard it as impossible to do in Great Britain or Ireland that which he does without the slightest compunction when he visits Switzerland or almost every other country on the face of the globe? To come nearer home, does not every traveller who crosses the Irish Channel move the hands of his watch twenty-five minutes? Who should he shudder and shrink from a similar act in London or Chester, when he will do it without a murmur between Holyhead and Kingston?
"The objects I have in view point to the physical, mental, moral, and financial advantage of the whole country. Sunshine destroys germ, raises the vitality, adds to the gaiety and beauty of lift, and every additional hour of it reduces our expenditure on artificial light."
The following are some interesting opinions on the Bill:
Lord Sandys says: "I think the scheme would be of great benefit to the health of this nation generally, and more especially to workers in our cities"; and Viscount Milner says: "The scheme appears to me to be quite easy of realisation, and surely no one could question the beneficence of the result. There may be practical difficulties in the way, but I have not been able to think of them."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's view is: "I think it would make for the health and happiness of the majority of the community, and that the next generation of Britons would be better for having had this extra hour of daylight in their childhood, and the general standard probably of health and of stature would be increased by it. In a thousand ways it would act for good, and, as far as I can see, the objections, however valid they may be, are still in the minority as compared with the advantage, one might put forward. One of the many by-products of the Bill would be that there would be time for civilians to learn rifle-shooting."
Beneficial to Health
Dr. J. Robertson Day says: "As a physician, I say that it will be highly beneficial in giving more light for the population generally. We know the value of light in the maintenance of health. In fact, we now have institutions where artificial light baths are given, to supplement the light which should come from the heavens. Sunshine is the best form of getting light baths. If we could have more of it there would be less anaemia, less rickets, etc., and it would tend largely to prevent the deterioration of the race. There would be reduced consumption of coal in the manufacture of artificial light, and consequently loss smoke in towns, which would also be highly beneficial."
As to the financial advantages, Mr. Howard Williams, of Messrs. Hitchcock, Williams, and Co., St. Paul's-churchyard, writes: "I find that if the working hours had been adjusted last year, as is proposed by this Bill, my firm would be saved, in the period during which the altered hours would have been in operation, the sum of £347." And the secretary of Messrs. Morel Brothers, Cobbett and Son, says: "I find our electric bill for the summer months comes to £70. As we close at 7 p.m., we shall certainly save £50 of this."
It is only reasonable to suppose that a Bill with so many friends may some day soon find its way into practical politics.
