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1511. That you understand?-Perfectly, that is why you fix the Sunday as the best time you can possibly fix.

1512. You cannot make any practical suggestion for getting over that difficulty?—No, I cannot. 1513. Your views are confined to the question of clocks; the general benefit of the community is not your point ?—That I have well thought over as well, certainly I think the proposals in the Bill would be the best for the benefit of the community. 1514. Now let me ask you: The proposition is to use more daylight in the summer as being beneficial to the community, I take it you agree with that?-Yes, I do.

1515. Is there any advantage to the community in making it all the year round?--None whatever. I think the whole charm of the Bill would be lost if you did that.

Mr. Richards-continued.

[Continued.

thing in America and all over the Continent. It is always the cry of the British horologist; he is always against any progress. Now no two clocks will ever keep exactly the same time, I don't said in my lecture, instead of synchronising being care how good they are; and therefore, as it is an insult to a good clock it gives just the touch of perfection which it lacks, and it is a guarantee that that clock is showing Greenwich time; and as to all this humbug about the alteration of clocks being harmful to the clock, does it ever occur to you that people alter their clocks every week?

Chairman.

1520. In what way?-If you take the ordinary household where the clock is wound once a week, you never find that clock at the end of the week showing the same time as it did at the beginning

1516. The whole object of it? The whole when it was corrected. object of it.

1517. And the use of it ?—Yes.

Mr. Richards.

1518. We had a witness here a short time ago who like yourself is a very practical man, and he made a statement which is rather contradictory to your evidence. I should like to get to the bottom of it if I can. The question put to him was: "You do not see any practical difficulty?" And his reply was. "No; one suggestion is to make the change at two o'clock on one of the Sundays. I do not know how you are going to get over that; who is going to alter the station clocks." "(Q) It has been suggested that it might be done electrically-electrical synchronisation. (4) Yes, that might come in time, but at the present time not one clock in a hundred is so arranged. It means a big expense, and it is unnecessary, because a good clock does not want synchronising.' I think we had another witness here previous to that gentleman who said: "The best of clocks do not always keep correct time"?-Do you want my answer to that, Sir?

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1519. Just one other point. He said: "Who could dream of synchronising Big Ben.'" I should say you would, would not you?—No, certainly not, not "Big Ben." That is an exceptional clock. I mean to say you must take things reasonably. I recently lectured on this subject on "The Time of a Great City," and my lecture was a plea for uniformity of public clocks. I think that would be a vast advantage to the community; in fact, if I could see any change effected, I should like to see this Bill running for both objects at the same time. From time to time there have been public outcries against lying clocks." All the public clocks. If you go from Charing Cross or Westminster to the Bank you will find all sorts of times shown. That is a great scandal. It has been publicly referred to lately and shown to be a great scandal. Now on every occasion when that outcry is made the clock maker always says: "Synchronising! Sychronising is an insult to a good clock; it does not require it "; but while he says that about sychronising he never suggests a remedy, and it goes on the same as before, year after year. We have before us, as an example, Berlin. At Berlin they would no more think of being without their synchronised clocks than without their telephone. The same

Mr. Richards.

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1522. I should like you to tell me what are the difficulties of the half-hour's change with regard to standard clocks; are they insuperable difficulties?-Oh, no; that is not an insuperable difficulty. 20 minutes is the easiest; as a matter of fact, any other period could be provided for.

1523. I do not quite follow why you say 20 minutes is easier than half an hour on a standard clock?-Oh, on a standard clock!

1524. Yes, I am talking of a standard clock?— An ordinary spring wound synchronised clock?

1525. Yes? If you are going to make a halfhour alteration you would have to put special mechanism into the clock for it.

1526. There is no city in Great Britain where clocks are synchronised, is there, at present ?Except London; there clocks are synchronised by the Company that I represent; and where there are time bargains-wherever time is of importance-I think the importance of having clocks synchronised is fully recognised. The Stock Exchange for

instance.

1527. That means an electric wire to each, does it? Yes. For a small subscription we carry a wire to the clock, put the instrument into the clock and attend to it all the year round. The ordinary subscription is about three guineas a year, that pays for winding it the whole year through as well as synchronising every hour, day and night.

1528. How would that compare with the charge in most other cities?—The charge would largely depend upon the number of subscribers. As the number of subscribers went up, the charge would come down. My view is that the public authorities ought to look after the public clocks, and if they did so it would not cost more than a fraction of a farthing on their rates.

1529. I was not here when you gave your first statement. I do not know whether you alluded to the state of matters abroad. I understand that synchronisation is done much more frequently abroad than in this country?-Berlin

26 May, 1908.]

SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE DAYLIGHT SAVING BILL.

Mr. Pirie-continued.

66

66

Mr. WINNE, F.R.G.S.

is the model time-keeping city. Excuse my going back to your half-hour." I am reminded that there is no no difficulty in altering the clock half an hour by our synchronising system, but we should have to put an additional instrument into the clock. The illustration I was giving just now was with a view of not disturbing present things more than you can help. I take it that is the desire-you do not wish to disturb existing arrangements more than is absolutely necessary to effect the objects of your Bill. Now synchronising is very general throughout America and in the Continental cities. Berlin is, I suppose, the model time-keeping city of the world. There they have a certain number of clocks, six or more, which are called normal clocks," and they show seconds hands, and they go, beat for beat, with the observatory clock, so that the people who require to get the exact time to a second, know where they can go and get it. They have small towers, small pillars (having come to the conclusion that a church steeple is not the place in which to put a public clock) as high as that door, at street corners and so on, and the municipal authority pays so much per annum for these public clocks. Some of them (the iron standards) are let out for advertising purposes, and are not at all eye-sores. They are illuminated and they bring in a large advertising revenue, and then the Berlin Company has private subscribers as well. What we suffer from in this country, Greenwich mean time being the standard. time of the country, is that there is not a single place in London, for instance, where the official time of the country is officially shown, not one. The only place where it is shown, semi-officially, by any public authority, is in the Guildhall, where we sound a bell on the sixtieth second of the sixtieth minute. It is an extraordinary state of things; they would not stand such a state of things abroad. Berlin is the model time-keeping city. It seems to me that what we want here is a time authority," and we have not such a thing.

1530. Does such a thing exist in Berlin ?-Yes, the only question is whether such a "time authority" should be a Government authority or a private authority. Berlin has found that it is better to leave it to a private authority, a similar company to ours. In Berlin, the observatory only transmits the time to the Berlin Company, and that Company re-transmits the time all over the German Empire; it sends the time to all the railways, the telegraph and post offices and all the public offices; in fact, it sets the time all over the country by authority. You have no such thing here, and, as a Member of the Committee just now remarked, he observed a difference in the clocks at Euston Station. You have only a higgledy-piggledy state of affairs. I have been asked whether a household of a £100 a year, with four clocks, could have their clocks synchronised? Well, they would not do it, and there is no necessity for it. What you want is a sufficient number of reliable public standards to set the private clocks by, authoritative standards. If this Bill becomes law, you will see the newspapers saying: "Advance your clocks 20 minutes tonight," and people will do it. They would do it

M

Mr. Pirie-continued.

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[Continued.

even without that, but when you come to the railways, and when you come to the post offices there is the necessity of synchronising wires to connect the clocks. The railways have wires, so have the post office. At 10 o'clock the post office time signal goes out. The time of our country (the time of Great Britain by the Act of 1880 is to be Greenwich mean time, as has been said) How does the country get it? The country gets it by means of the 10 o'clock signal which goes out over the post office wires. Just the moment before 10 all the wires are cleared throughout the country and the 10 o'clock signal goes through the whole country, and on that signal the post offices are supposed to correct their time.

1531. In the morning ?-In the morning. Then they have a second signal at one, but the time of the post office signal for their own time purposes is 10 o'clock.

1532. The manager of the London and North Western Railway gave the Committee, in his evidence, a statement to the effect that they transmit this signal daily over 2,000 miles ?The railways do it also.

1533. I suppose all the railways of the country do practically the same thing?-Yes, all the railways. They send the signal all right, but then they do not alter their clocks-the clocks are not properly altered. Take the case of the post office. Here is another extraordinary thing

I don't know whether you are aware of itthe post office do not provide and maintain their own clocks. This is done by H.M. Office of Works.

Chairman.

1534. Why do not they alter their clocks?— They ought to have them attended to. The post office have got the wire, they have got the signal which would synchronise their clocks with the aid of simple relays to provide sufficient energy; it is the simplest matter in the world, you would think. In every public post office they should have at least one clock synchronised and put a badge on it; if you have two clocks one showing three minutes to the hour and the other three minutes past the hour, it does not follow that both are necessarily wrong, but one must be wrong, perhaps both are, but you have a difference of six minutes straight away. With one synchronised clock available the error of one or both such clocks can be readily ascertained. You see all this is very interesting. This Bill in my opinion should go very much further than it does.

1535. Then, in your opinion, if the post offices throughout the kingdom had one synchronised clock the difficulty of changing the time would be very materially lessened, even if it did not disappear altogether?-Certainly, I say so. The experience of so many years has shown that hand alterations cannot be relied upon, and the time has now come when there should be official standards in every town. The hand alteration of clocks is of no good to the railway; it must be mechanically effected at frequent intervals to be of any real service in securing uniformity.

1536. One more question. Can you give me a rough estimate of what would be the cost of the 12* necessary

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necessary machine to synchronise one clock in a post office ?-About a sovereign I should think, sir.

1537. Once for all ?-Yes.

1538. We had a witness here representing the British Horological Institute the other day, and he expressed very invincible hostility to the methods contemplated by this Bill. He said he could speak both for the Institute and for himself in recommending a permanent alteration of one hour, that is to say, adopting what is known as Mid-European time, which is an hour faster than Greenwich time. Have you anything to say with regard to that view held by a member of what you would would probably consider an important Institution ?-I have already answered the question, I think, by saying the whole object of your Bill would be defeated by that; it would spoil the whole thing.

1539. His view was that certain European nations had discarded local time and adopted Greenwich time as regards the minutes and quarters and seconds; that it would save a considerable amount of possible confusion if the same standard were adopted in this country for the purposes of this Bill; that it would cause much less possible confusion than the four separate

Chairman-continued.

[Continued.

alterations of the clock might conceivably involve? -My view is that if you alter the time an hour, if you come to the conclusion that that is the right thing to recommend, although I do not agree with it all-permanently an hour-you would not want to alter the clocks at all.

1540. How would you obtain the advantages proposed to be conferred by the Bill?—I think you would obtain them by passing an Act of Parliament under which all post offices, all Government offices, all public houses, in fact, all banks and things of that kind-which would automatically control the movements of the community should be forced to open and close an hour earlier.

1541. That would be coming back to the same thing. If you obtained legislative sanction to an arrangement by which one hour would be gained you would be discarding the proposals suggested by this Bill and recommending what Mr. Wright recommended ?-I do not recommend that at all. I recommend the proposals of this Bill.

1542. You recommend the proposals of this Bill preferably to any other alteration ?-Undoubtedly.

(The Witness withdrew.)

Mr. FRANK HOPE-JONES called in; and Examined.

Chairman.

1543. You are a member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, a member of the British Horological Institution, and you have devoted yourself to the application of electricity to horology. Will you tell the Committee briefly what advantages you consider would be derived from Mr. Willett's Bill, and any objections, if you have thought of any ?-I most heartily approve of Mr. Willett's Bill in every detail. I have not only the ordinary reasons which we almost all hold in favour of it, but I have the reasons which Mr. Winne has partly expressed, I think well expressed, that is that it would be beneficial in that it will produce, I hope, a saner method of timekeeping generally. Our methods, as you have heard from him, are very far behind those which are commonly used by almost every other civilised country. He has spoken particularly of the facilities that electricity has to offer in making the necessary alterations to clocks. The point of view he has taken up is naturally one of very wide importance, dealing as he does with existing clocks, and he has shown how synchronisation controlled by a proper organisation will assist the carrying out of the objects of the Bill by altering those clocks easily. I can go a little bit further in the same direction, because I think I am peculiarly competent to speak for a new branch of our electrical profession, that is the science of electrical time service by means of electrically propelled impulse clocks. It may be a surprise to you gentlemen to know that there are some 10,000 clocks in this country which are not clocks in the ordinary sense. but only have one wheel and an electro-magnet behind it. Some large institutions and big buildings are equipped

Chairman-continued.

with 150 clocks in each, which keep absolutely uniform time and require no winding up because they are electrically propelled by this new little branch of our electrical profession. With respect to all such clocks (and their number is growing with great rapidity) they can be set forward or backward with infinitely greater ease than even you have heard can be done with respect to the existing clocks by the method Mr. Winne has been describing. In order to make the matter clear, Mr. Willett suggested that I should bring with me a little example of the method so used. (The Witness produced a model containing a controlling clock with two dials.) The mechanism behind these clocks is absolutely simple -one wheel and a magnet behind each. This is the one controlling instrument which measures the time for both or any number of dials. There may be any number of them. If you want to advance the clocks any pre-determined amount of time, you have nothing to do but press a button and advance them all half-minute by half-minute as far as ever you like. One would, of course, arrange that those responsible for these large electric time circuits in great buildings, or this aggregation of a number of buildings, perhaps down one side of a street, a certain section of the town-because it is now frequently the case that a number of buildings are linked up on to one time-measurer controlling pendulum, or central master clock-one would arrange for someone responsible for looking after this building, say a caretaker, to be employed at two o'clock each Sunday morning in April to set forward the whole of these clocks 20 minutes; there may be hundreds, or even thousands in a collection of buildings in

the

26 May, 1908.]

SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE DAYLIGHT SAVING BILL.

Chairman-continued.

Mr. HOPE-JONES.

the City which might be so dealt with in a moment. 1544. What would be the cost of such a central system? The cost of such a system, would be £2 per clock, including wiring and everything. It is a most common thing nowadays for my profession to take a large institution, a hospital, industrial establishment, or an asylum, and put in a hundred clocks for £200—a complete installation -£2 per clock.

1545. £2 per clock a year, do you mean?—No, purchased out and out, the purchase price, first cost, the whole thing.

1546. The value of the clocks included ?—The value of the clocks included, the cost of wiring and everything else.

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1547. Is that what you call the "magnetoelectric clock"?-It is somewhat similar; your purpose it may be considered the same. It is one of many systems of electrical impulse clocks. The method of setting back can be, if desired, just the same as setting forward, except that one would turn a switch and press another button, and they would then go backwards as rapidly; but in that respect I ought to mention that many thousands of such clocks already existing are not equipped with means whereby they can be set back instantaneously except to a limited extent on board ships; consequently I have devised here mechanism which would enable you to set them back quite simply, although they are not provided each one with a special apparatus to enable you to do it instantaneously. The method is this: If you require to set this back 20 minutes all you want to do is to open this one dial here of the master clock (illustrating), press this lever, turn the hand back 20 minutes, or as far as ever you wish. For the purpose of Mr. Willett's Bill we should alter this and we should put a stop there at exactly 20 minutes to the hour, so that at two o'clock in September every Sunday morning you would simply turn the hand back 20 minutes, and you could not possibly make a mistake. The fact of having turned the hands of that clock back has disconnected all the other clocks in the circuit, they are now dead and have to wait; consequently, you see now, when I am pressing this button for the purpose of demonstration-we need not wait 20 minutes; we will gallop along as fast as we can and assume the 20 minutes to have passed-you will observe that this dial (illustrating), like the other dials connected with it, is idle, and will be until the hand of the master dial comes to the spot from which it was moved, and then automatically it switches in the others. This is merely a little device of my own to enable us to apply the convenience of rapidly setting back existing circuits of electrically propelled clocks of which I estimate there are close on 10,000 in this country now, and without any question there will be 20,000 before this time next year.

1548. Is that a British patent? This one, yes; I happen to be perhaps the godfather of that little branch of my profession in this country. I have been at it 10 years developing this means of electrical impulse clocks, but I am glad to say now I am no longer alone. In the last two or three years many very active commercial

Chairman-continued.

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[Continued.

organisations are with me in developing this system.

1549. May the Committee take it from you that the gradual alteration of clocks suggested by the Bill is perfectly feasible ?-Absolutely feasible, feasible, even with regard to existing clocks of any kind; and I go so far as to say, with regard to the limitation which Mr. Winne hinted at as to striking clocks, that there will be no difficulty in overcoming that; if the demand arises, the supply will be there. There will be no difficulty in altering all clocks in accord with the provisions of this Bill; and with regard to the modern science of an electric time service, they will be made from this time forward with a view that they shall be so altered. I have no doubt, because it is as cheap for us to do that as anything else.

1550. Is it striking or non-striking ?-Both. With respect to striking clocks we are now doing without the complicated mechanism of the ordinary key-wound turret clocks and are doing it by little electric motors, and they can as easily be set back 20 minutes four times a year and set forward 20 minutes four times a year as this can.

1551. Now does the Standard Time Company use your patents at all, do you know?—I look upon them as allies, Sir, because we are both at work in the same science. Their speciality is synchronisation or correcting of existing clocks. Mine is another branch of the same profession, and in a sense quite a different thing, the electrical propulsion of groups of dials. I use the Standard Time Company's methods and they use mine, because, wherever I have a large building equipped with clocks controlled by one pendulum apparatus or balance wheel apparatus like this clock, I use their signal to correct my controller exactly to the tenth part of a second every hour on their excellent service. Consequently I have security that all the dials operated by it in that group will be equally Greenwich time.

Mr. Pearce.

1552. The regulation of the existing clocks is the point; we want to see that there is no difficulty about that. I understand from you that there is no difficulty about the regulation of existing clocks?-None.

1553. Have you considered the general question as to the convenience to the community of this proposed mode of dealing with it in the Bill?I have, Sir, very thoroughly, from the very first time Mr. Willett's pamphlet was published, and I am in most absolute accord with it and sincerely hope it will be made law.

1554. For summer alteration only?—For summer alteration only.

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1558. You are a Fellow of the Surveyors' Institute?—I am; and the author of "Martin's Tables of Time, Weights, Measures and Coinage, a subject I have taken an interest in for some years.

1559. We have just heard from Mr. Willett that you were at the Cape when a change of time took place; were you?-Yes, when they made the half-hour change.

1560. Had you any official position, any public position, at that time?—No, no public position at the Cape.

1561. What are the impressions that you gathered from the alteration that took place in the general time at the Cape ?-It caused no confusion whatever. I respectfully beg to differ from Sir David Gill, the late Astronomer Royal at Cape Town. I understand, he gave evidence that he was responsible for the change. When you realise that the territory with which he had to deal, Cape Colony, is equivalent to a stretch of country from Land's End to John o' Groat's House, with very few railways and very few telegraphs, and that he would have to be responsible for communicating to the post offices in all those dorps, two or three days' journey, perhaps, by Cape cart, and two or three days back, perhaps it did cause some confusion to him, he being solely responsible, but I am prepared to affirm, as one of the public, that it caused no inconvenience whatever to them; in fact, as it was to be a permanent change, one would think that on an occasion like that there would be a band

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present to play Auld Lang Syne or something, or that there would be some interest taken in it. I went down to the General Post Office to see what was going on, and I was the only witness outside the post office when the change was made.

1562. What time in the day was it?-Halfpast 11 at night was made 12 o'clock, midnight, and I am afraid Sir David Gill's memory in giving his evidence has perhaps failed him to a certain extent, for, if I remember rightly, it was made one Saturday night so that the inconvenience would be to the people going to church next day, not the hullabaloo at the railway station, and I suppose if this change contemplated by the Bill was brought about there would be an announcement in all places of public worship, the same as there.

1563. So that your impression is that the change took place without any social disturbance of any sort as regards domestic domestic arrangements ?— Absolutely so.

1564. Or official ?-I mean men did not talk about it next day more than they would on board ship.

Chairman-continued.

1565. Then your view is that the methods suggested by this Bill are very practicable and feasible?—Yes, I think so. I was here to give evidence on the matter of the Cape only, but personally I should sooner see three half-hour changes than four 20 minute changes.

1566. The analogy of the Cape is hardly a parallel with this, I take it; I suppose that was a permanent arrangement,—an immutable thing; once it was done and put through, people thought no more of it, whereas this Bill contemplates a yearly change of a certain magnitude-eight alterations during the year?-Yes, but the fact that it was to be permanent at the Cape, one would think, would make people take more notice of it, but they did not; they did not take any notice of it to talk of, and the people are not of the opinion, as I understand Sir David Gill said, that they had been cheated into getting up earlier. He was responsible for many people in Cape Town getting up earlier and no one is any the wiser at Cape Town; they go on in the ordinary way; perhaps some of them have been living there for years and do not know that this change occurred.

1567. Can you tell the Committee whether, if the change had been a six-monthly change instead of a permanent one, it would have been effected with equal equanimity and absence of disturbance? -I certainly think it would have caused no more disturbance.

1568. No more than the permanent change?We should get quite used to making the changes. 1569. You are quite certain about it ?-No one can be quite certain.

1570. But from what you have observed ?— From what I observed there, I am quite convinced that it will not cause all the trouble imagined. I am afraid it is rather an insular way that we have of looking upon changes as causing trouble; at any rate, if it were tried for a year or two we should soon know. It is worth trying.

1571. Have you anything to say as regards the alternative suggestion of a six-monthly alteration of one hour. Does that possess any attraction for you?-The only attraction is the six months change in the summer.

1572. An hour change instead of the change as foreshadowed by the Bill? Yes, or two hours.

1573. Which would you prefer, the change of the Bill, an hour and 20 minutes, or would you prefer an hour's change for six months or the five summer months?—I think an hour is a very short time; it would be a very little alteration to make. If we changed to two hours in the summer months, we should have the same time as the Cape to Cairo time. We could go to that or we could

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