150 UAYLir.IlT SAVIXC^. 



But if at the ecjuator, and even to latitudes 30° north and 

 south, the logic of " Daylight Saving " is weak, there is something 

 to be said for an alteration in our hours of rising and going to bed. 

 The fashionable tendency in towns has been for well-to-do people 

 (to rise and go to bed later and later, and this reacts on all town 

 classes. If rich people want entertainment after 11 p.m., and 

 even up to midnight or later, the working people will cater for 

 'them. The evil of such late hours is obvious, yet how is it to 

 be combated ? Legislators have evidently considered that a 

 direct appeal would be useless, or at least difficult to make effec- 

 tive, so they have, in accordance with tradition, taken the line 

 of least resistance, the line we see adopted on the stage by wives 

 who are aggrieved at their husbands' late hours — they advance 

 ithe clock — and by this harmless if theatrical deception attain 

 their object. 



If this device is unscientific it is. after all, not very ob- 

 jectionable, because, as said earlier, our clock hours are now little 

 more than conventional. It would have been better to have 

 relied on the moral fibre of townspeople, and have asked them 

 to rise an hour earlier in summer time and to have adopted 

 generally an earlier time-table. But to this, legislators consider 

 v/e are unequal— we are flabby — and a little mental deception 

 is required to gild the legislative pill. 



How would Daylight Saving aiTect us in South Africa? 

 We must, first of all, remember that over the whole of South 

 Africa, Portuguese East Africa, and Egypt zone or standard time 

 of the second hour east of Greenwich is used. Capetown, Jo- 

 hannesburg, Salisbury, Lorenzo Marques all use the same time, 

 and this is a very great convenience in long-distance travelling 

 and trading. All places to the west of the adopted meridian 

 use or save daylight, whilst those in the east lose it by the use 

 of standard time. Thus Capetown, being in E. Longitude i 

 hour 13.9 minutes, or 46.1 minutes west of E. Longitude 2 

 hours, benefits by 46.1 minutes of daylight. When a Cape- 

 tonian rises at S hours a.m. standard time, he really rises at 7 

 hours 14 minutes mean time, and so on. For the chief jilaces 

 in South Africa the gain or loss is as follows: — 



Gain or Loss in Daylight 

 on Mean Time. 



Windhuk 52 mins. gain. 



Cai)etc)wn 46 „ „ 



Port Elizabeth 18 .. 



Bloemfontein 15 ,, ,, 



East London 8 ,, ,, 



Johannesburg 8 ,, „ 



Pretoria 8 ,, ,, 



Bulawayo 5 ^ ». 



Maritzburg 2 „ loss. 



Dur1)an 4 >> » 



Salisbury 4 >• m 



Lorenzo Marfpies .... 10 ,, „ 



