350 



NATURE 



[May II 



I'M I 



national requirements and (>conomy. It in needless 

 to say that such a vi«-\v completely misrepresents the 

 character of the scientific objection to the scheme. 

 Let us admit, as fullv as the most ardent of the 

 supjK)rtors of Mr. Willett's scheme could wish, that 

 the acceptance of his proposed lef^islation will do all 

 that he demands for it : that it will j^ive London 

 154 more daylight-using^ hours in the year, that it 

 will reduce the li)«htinj;f e.xpenses in all industrial 

 operations, that it will improve the health of the 

 nation and Im? productive of other advantaKt'>»- It is 

 still incumbent upon the promoters to show that the 

 machinery which they propose is the best ada|)ted to 

 the end in view, and that it will be effective. Our 

 contention is that they have sought to effect th« 

 amendment they desire in an objectionable manner. 

 Our lives, duties, business, and pleasures are not 

 uniformly distributed throujjhout the hours of day- 

 light. Then let us have a more systematic arrange- 

 ment. What should be aimed at is a modification of 

 our habits on judicious lines. It should be the busi- 

 ness and the effort of Mr. Willett and his friends 

 to cultivate a more enlightened public opinion, to 

 persuade people to adopt more rational customs. He 

 has tried to get a desirable result by a wrong method ; 

 W'.* mig'ht say. by a disingenuous method. 



Of course, it may be argued, as Dr. von Enpel 

 does, that " No society, however powerful, would be 

 able to induce a universal movement for early rising 

 for increasinfj our enjoyment of the sunlight." If 

 not. why not? What has been the determininpf 

 factor by which the conduct of life has been con- 

 tinually shifted later in the day? It is not impossible 

 that the preference for the afternoon has been 

 broufifht about by the necessity or convenience of 

 regulatinfT life not by light, but by heat. The heat 

 meridian does not coincide with the light meridian, 

 but is some two hours or more after it, and the day 

 is arranged apparently so as to make available the 

 greatest amount of heat. Mr. Willett asks us to dis- 

 regard this effect. He does not seem to see. or at 

 least does not admit, what is perfectly obvious to all 

 who have pfiven the matter sufficient consideration, 

 that if more light is utilised in the morninjj. there 

 is also a lower temperature to be encountered. To 

 have to burn a fire in the early morning: would be a 

 ver)- decided set-off to the use of less artificial light at 

 nifjht. But on this view we do not insist. We are 

 content to make the point, that heat as well as light 

 should be considered, and that its importance in the 

 comfort of life cannot be neglected, as is shown by 

 the social arrangements that obtain in other countries 

 of Europe, as well as in the Tropics. But perhaps 

 the promoters of the scheme for periodically changing 

 the standard meridian contemplate also a seasonal 

 variation of the thermometer scale. It would be 

 just as reasonable for Parliament to enact that, in 

 certain months, a temperature of, sav. 60° should be 

 called 70°. as it would be to agree that for a certain 

 part of the year 6.0 o'clock should become 7.0 o'clock. 



In his speech at the Guildhall, Mr. Churchill re- 

 ferred to some points upon which we have a few- 

 words to say. He mentioned that the ag:ricultural 

 population of the country already make full use of 

 daylifjht hours in the various seasons, and that 

 thousands of firms and offices (he mig^ht have in- 

 cluded the Board of Education) have different working 

 hours in summer and winter. A not inconsiderable 

 number of people thus solve the problem in the most 

 reasonable way by adapting- their habits so that the i 

 best use is made of daylight. This would seem to I 

 provide an argument for urging similar action upon i 

 other sections of the community, but scarcely fur- 

 nishes a reason for compulsory' alteration of the clock 



NO. 2167, VOL. 86] 



upon dnvit prescribed by Act of Parliament, h i- 

 only in a great city like London that indiv ' ' 

 whose hours of work :md leisure van>- wii 

 seasons can be said to suffer any difficulty or ;■... 

 venii-nce because, as .Mr. Churchill said, they at. 

 "out of contact with the customary time-table "f '■ 

 nati<tn." There is no j,(ener.-il time-table of li; 

 labour followed in the I'nited Kingdom as a ■ 

 The "customary time-table" of London differs .1- 

 rej^ards evening meals and amusements from that <•• 

 nearly all other cities in the kingdom, being an hour 

 or more later than is usual in nwst provincial town'- 

 If custom is to be considered in the scheme for tlv 

 division of daylight and darkness, then London wili 

 require the clocks to be advanced by two hours t' 

 be placed in the same position «^s most places in fh 

 provinces where the clocks w.qyU/dT. be put forward fci 

 one hour. 



It is also forgotten by the promoters of the <« ' 

 that the daylight hours of London and other pl.i. 

 the same latitude differ considerably from tho>.- •■ 

 [ places farther north. At Aberdeen, Dundee, and 

 I Edinburg^h, for instance, lightinp-up time for vehicle- 

 1 in the present month is about 35 minutes later th.-m 

 j in Ix)ndon, and next month it will be three-quarter- 

 of an hour later, that is, about 10. o p.m. Scotland 

 has, in fact, a natural extension of the daylight hour- 

 in the summer months without any need for legis- 

 lation. .\t Edinburgh and all places north of it 

 there are not sufficient hours of darkness in Max 

 June, and July for the normal eig^ht hours of slee|' 

 required by men or women, and there would be n. 

 advantage in advancing the clocks by an hour froir 

 the third Sunday in April to the third .Sunday in 

 .September. The 154 hours "more daylight" which 

 Mr. Churchill says would be secured by the schem< 

 "to the whole people of these islands." are alread\ 

 possessed by the people of Scotland between .\pri! 

 and .September. Why not suggest, therefore, th.ir 

 for certain months of the year the latitude of Edin- 

 burgfh shall be the latitude of all other places south 

 of it in the I'nited Kingdom, instead of proposing 

 that the longitude of Berlin shall be the longitud- 

 of Greenwich ? 



.\nother point referred to by Mr. Churchill was thi 

 ease with which the change of nine minutes from 

 Paris to Greenwich time was effected recently in 

 France. It is difficult to understand how this action 

 can be held to afford any support to the scheine of 

 "daylig^ht saving." Our own view is that, as France 

 has now adopted the Greenwich meridian as its 

 standard for time-reckoning, it would be an un- 

 friendly and injudicious act for us to abandon Green- 

 wich time for German time during an arbitrary- 

 period of the year. France has now come into line 

 with the international system of time-reckoning 

 based on standard meridians beginning with the 

 meridian of Greenwich and extending: round the 

 w-hole civilised world. These meridians are per- 

 manent standards at present, but if the principle of 

 the daylight-saving scheme were accepted they would 

 oscillate east and west on different dates, and hope- 

 less confusion would be introduced in the place of a 

 scientific system. 



The fact that it is easy to advance one's watch 

 by an hour when entering the zone where Mid- 

 European time is kept, and to put it back an hour 

 when leaving the zone, provides no argument for 

 the alteration of the time of the United Kingdom 

 twice a year. When you move fifteen degrees east 

 you really do reach a long-itude at which the time, as 

 indicated by the sun's position, is an hour in advance 

 of Greenwich time. Noon occurs nearly an hour 

 earlier at Berlin than at Greenwich, whatever 



