392 Mr. W. H. M. Christie [March 19, 



whole country, and thus we are led to look forward to the adoption 

 in the near future of a national standard time, six hours slow by 

 Greenwich, for railways and telegraphs throughout North America. 



We may then naturally expect that by the same process which 

 we have witnessed in England, France, Italy, Sweden, and other 

 countries, railway time will eventually regulate all the affairs of 

 ordinary life. There may of course be legal difficulties arising from 

 the change of time-reckoning, and probably in the first instance local 

 time would be held to be the legal time unless otherwise specified. 



It seems certain that when a single standard of time has been 

 adopted by the railways throughout such a large tract of country 

 as North America, where we have a difference of local times ex- 

 ceeding five hours, the transition to universal time will be but a 

 small step. 



But it is when we come to consider the influence of telegraphs on 

 business life, an influence which is constantly exercised, and which 

 is year by year increasing, that the necessity for a universal or world 

 time becomes even more apparent. As far as railways are concerned, 

 each country has its own system, which is to a certain extent complete 

 in itself, though even in the case of railways the rapidly increasing 

 inter-communication between different countries makes the transition 

 in time-reckoning on crossing the frontier more and more inconvenient. 

 Telegraphs, however, take no account of the time kept in the countries 

 through which they pass, and the question, as far as they are con- 

 cerned, resolves itself into the selection of that system of time-reckon- 

 ing which will give least trouble to those who use them. 



For the time which is thus proposed for eventual adoption through- 

 out the world, various names have been suggested. But whether we 

 call it Universal, Cosmic, Terrestrial, or what seems to me best of 

 all. World Time, I think we may look forward to its adoption for 

 many purposes of life in the near future. 



The question, however, arises as to the starting-point for the 

 universal or world day. Assuming that, as decided by the great 

 majority of the delegates at Washington, it is to be based on the 

 meridian of Greenwich, it has still to be settled whether the world 

 day is to begin at midnight or noon of that meridian. The astro- 

 nomers at Rome decided by a majority of twenty-two to eight in 

 favour of the day commencing at Greenwich noon, that is, of making 

 the day throughout Europe begin about midday. However natural 

 it might be for a body of astronomers to propose that their own 

 peculiar and rather inconvenient time-reckoning should be imposed 

 on the general public, it seems safe to predict that a World Day 

 which commenced in the middle of their busiest hours would not be 

 accepted by business men. In fact, the idea on which this proposal 

 was founded was that universal time would be used solely for the 

 internal administration of railways and telegraphs, and that accurate 

 local time must be rigidly adhered to for all other purposes. It was 

 conceded, however, that persons who travelled frequently might with 



