26 May, 1908.]

Chairman-continued.

go to Mid-European time, and then back again or go on an hour and a half. Personally, I would like to see the change kept to a standard time or a semi-standard time.

1574. Carrying out the proposals of the Bill, an hour and 20 minutes?-The principles of the Bill, but not the hour and 20 minutes. There are 24" longitudinal time zones "round the world, and I do not at all see why for six months in the year we should not have a latitudinal change of time.

1575. Of how much ?-As I say, for one hour or two hours.

1576. Either one or two hours?—Yes. By consent of European countries, leaving out the three southern peninsulas. This change of time need not take an exact latitudinal line; that is to say, they could keep to the southern boundary of France, and leave Spain out perhaps and the two other southern peninsulas.

1577. Are you indifferent as to whether the change is one hour or two hours?—I am indifferent as to that.

1578. You think the objects of the Bill would be equally attained either by the one hour change or a change of two hours over Greenwich time? Yes, provided we should not get ahead of the time adopted in Mid-Europe. I do not think it would do for us to be ahead of Berlin, but if Berlin said she would go on one hour, I do not see why we could not go on two hours.

1579. You would make it conditional on Berlin accepting two hours; if they did not accept that, you would only adopt Mid-European time?-One hour. There is a difference of 10 hours in daylight between winter and summer, five hours in the morning and five hours in the evening. I do not think that, out of five hours, two hours would be too great a change.

1580. Judging from your experience of South Africa, do you think three or four alterations could be made with equal facility as the alteration that was made at the Cape ?-Yes, certainly. We have greater facility here with the telegraph,

and so on.

1581. With equal facility; that is to say, the minimum of disturbance ?-Yes.

1582. I ask you whether three or four alterations during the year could be made with the same absence of disturbance as that to which you have just testified as having taken place at the Cape? -Yes, I think it could be done easier here, because there would not be two or three days' journey in Cape-carts for the postmen.

1583. The United Kingdom I am asking you about?—It would be easier here if possible.

1584. The gradual alteration would be easier? -The greater number of alterations would be easier than completing the change in one day.

1585. The great number of alterations would be easier than one alteration ?-The greater number, yes.

Mr. Pirie.

1586. You stated that you would prefer the three half-hour changes to four 20 minutes changes; why?-Well I favour the system of the 24 time zones round the world, the 24 zone times that the world is practically split up into. I

Mr. Pirie-continued.

79

[Continued.

think it is not fairly realised what a great deal of use can be made of that from an educational standpoint. Anywhere on the equator the distance is 1,000 miles per hour. It is a very simple thing for a child to learn the time zones, and that a town in a time zone one hour ahead of Greenwich, would be 1,000 miles to the east of Greenwich, and three hours ahead of Greenwich, would be 3,000 miles east of Greenwich, and so on; that is on the equator, and if you go to forty-five degrees, it is 750 miles.

1587. You prefer the total change being an hour and a half to one hour and 20 minutes?—Yes. 1588. For that reason?-Well, that is not perhaps a very important reason, but I think it is a very useful way of teaching geography.

Mr. Pearce.

1589. Speaking of the question of whether it should be one hour or two hours change, have you considered that an alteration of two hours in the morning in the summer time would leave very little margin between daylight and work in Great Britain? The two hours?

1590. Yes. It depends upon what class of work; that is to say, it is light at 4 o'clock now; there are some people who begin work, I know, at 4 o'clock.

1591. All work has to be preceded by a breakfast time you know, and the getting of the house ready, you want an interval for that? Well, I thought there were many men who work before breakfast.

breakfast, but every man has to get up, to get to 1592. There are many men who work before

his work, has he not ?-Yes.

1593. I am suggesting to you that the plan of taking an hour and a half, not more than an hour and a half, in addition to the present usage of time, would be quite as much as we could do with, taking it out of the morning daylight in England, is that so?-Yes, that may be so.

community, is the hour change better than the 1594. Speaking of the convenience of the

two hours, or not?-I should think there would not be a great deal of difference, but I heard three-quarters of an hour spoken of; that is very

small.

1595. I am afraid you do not apprehend that which I am saying. Which is the most convenient time for the community, the hour change or the two-hour change in Great Britain?-I should think that they would both be very similar.

1596. Take this morning, for instance; would it have been quite as convenient for you to have been here two hours ago, as it is now ?-Yes, I think it would.

1597. It would have started you two hours nearer the dawn this morning ?-Yes, it would. 1598. Do you think that what would apply to you would apply to all the rest of the community ?-No, I do not say that.

1599. Let us get it clear. The Bill seeks to hit off the exact time at which we are to begin work in the summer; you say whether that is two hours or one hour earlier does not matter. I want to know whether it does matter or not ?It might to some people. I think if we tried

the

Mr. Pearce-continued. the one hour for one or two years, we should find that we could then go to the two hours.

1600. Do not you think, in the case of all factories and all mills that started at a regular clock time, an addition of two hours earlier than that clock time would be a severe tax upon the people who are there employed ?-I understand the Bill is so that we could adopt time suitable to the latitude that we happen to be placed in, and we are five hours earlier in the summer than in the winter. I should have thought that two hours would not have been too great.

1601. That question is, which would be most convenient for the people; that is the whole thing?—It remains to be proved, it seems to me. I do not wish to differ from you in any way. 1602. Now let us be quite fair to Sir David Gill. His letter to the "Times" was more exact and careful than his evidence here, let me say that. Now the letter to the "Times" spoke of the change which was made in 1892 ?—I was not there at that change.

1603. At that time, as his letter shows, every little town in South Africa had its own local time, is not that so ?-Yes.

1604. And the change then proposed was to do away with all the local times and agree to one of the 'hour zones "?—Yes.

66

1605. That was a problem of far greater difficulty than the change at which you were present, when they had already got in the Colony the one-hour zone?-The first change was 16 minutes.

1606. The first change was from local time in every little village and place everywhere to a common time ?—Yes.

1607. That was the first change, in 1892 ?Yes.

1608. Then you had already established a common time all over the Colony in 1892 ?—Yes. 1609. Then when the second change took place it was a mere alteration of that common time to one other of a half-hour ?-That is so.

1610. Therefore what was done in your time was very much simpler than what was done in 1892? There were three changes.

Mr. Pearce-continued.

[Continued.

1611. There were two changes, one of 16 minutes the other of half an hour ?-There was the change to get them all to adopt the one time; then there was the 16 minutes, and then the 30 minutes.

1612. Surely it would be much easier to change the half-hour when a common time had been established than to get all the little villages and towns to abandon their local time and to agree upon a common time. Surely that was much the most difficult thing to do ?—I was trying to make it clear that when the 16 minutes change was made it was no more difficult than to make the 30 minutes.

1613. No more difficult ?-You mean the 16 minutes.

1614. When it was made, then it was easy to change it by the half an hour?-Yes. They got them to adopt the same time all through the Colony; then you got the 16 minutes change.

1615. You got them all to adopt the same time throughout the Colony. I agree that that was the most difficult job Sir David Gill had to do? -Yes, I understand that was before 1892.

1616. That is the one which in his letter he says was the difficulty ?-I suppose that is what he must have meant.

1617. I only want to have it quite fair to him. Of course the half-hour change was a comparatively simple matter?-There was no educating the people up to the change there, it was all so simple.

1618. That had all been done in 1892. I do not know whether you remember the change in England in 1880, when we adopted Greenwich mean time all over the country here ?-No, I cannot remember that.

1619. I do remember it, and I remember the great difficulty there was in various places in England, in abandoning their local times and adopting Greenwich mean time. We had the same difficulty here, though it was not so serious? -I see only a year ago a Parish Council in Kent passed a resolution to adopt Greenwich time.

(The Witness withdrew.)

deal more loss of time. As far as we are concerned we would much rather begin at six o'clock than at 20 minutes to five." They were dead against it. Then I went into to the office, where there were about 200 clerks and inspectors, and I put the matter to them, and I asked them to talk the matter over amongst themselves; I gave them about five minutes; there was

an

Chairman.

1629. Yes. (To the Witness.) Will you go on, please, from where you were ?-Well, instead of consuming 518 million cubic feet, there would only be 297 million cubic feet used, or a loss to us of 221 millions. Well, that 221 millions would amount, in the case of our company, to about £24,000 of revenue and about £7,000 profit. I have assumed ours to be 8 per cent. of the whole of the gas used in the United Kingdom, and I find that on taking the price of gas at 2s. 9d. per 1,000 cubic feet on the average-which is quite high enough-the saving would only be

£380,000 in those three hours.

Mr. Pirie.

1630. In place of what?-Well, of course, Mr. Willett has got £3,820,000. £380,000 is just one-tenth of it; but then that includes all artificial light, I suppose. Mr. Willett says that a saving of 210 hours at one-tenth of a penny per hour for each inhabitant would amount to £3,820,000. Now I do not think, so far as the gas is concerned, that the saving would be more than one-tenth of that; and gas is certainly one-half of the total illuminant of artificial light, so that the money question, Sir, is a matter of no importance.

Chairman.

1631. You said just now that you approved of the objects at which the Bill aims, but not of the principle?—Yes; not to be done by Parliament. The object, of course, is to begin work earlier, and to end it earlier than at present, but there are great difficulties in the way. Not feeling that I have quite the right to speak for men generally without consulting them, I yesterday called together two bodies of our workmen and the clerks, each separately, about 200 workmen in the first body. I explained the matter; perhaps it may be said: "Well you do not like it"; but, though I have no feeling against it, I do not believe in it. I explained the matter, I explained the matter, as I think fairly, and I then said to the men: "Now will you talk the matter over among yourselves, and then I will take a vote." Of the 200, 13 held up their hands in favour of the alteration and all the rest against it. They begin work at six o'clock in the, morning. I then went to another body of men, quite 400, and put the same thing to them, and there was not one in favour of the alteration; every hand was held up against it. They said: "What would it mean to us? If we come late at six o'clock, say, we lose an hour, and it would cause a great

six held up their hands in favour of the alteration and all the others against it. Some of the workmen said: "We should like better to begin work later rather than earlier "; and going home last night I went with a friend, a Mr. Hazeldine, who is in a large way of business in the Borough as a cart and carriage builder. We had some talk about it. He said: "Well, a few years ago I put it to our men (their rule was to begin at six o'clock) “and I asked the men: What would you rather do; go on with the present hours, begin at six and end at five, or and 90 per begin at seven and end at six?' cent. of them were for beginning at seven and ending at six, and so it was settled." He said : "Of the remaining few (I saw them individually) I found that there was some personal reason against the change. One of our men said: 'I think this is a dodge of some clockmaker to upset the clocks." I only repeat what was said, for what it is worth.

1632. That happens to be diametrically opposed to the evidence of some of the representatives of labour that we have had before the Committee?

-Yes.

1633. I mean provincial representatives?—How have they taken it?

1634. They represented industrial enterprises. A Member of our Committee (Mr. Richards) told us that in certain enterprises with which he was connected they already had adopted the method of this Bill, and that it had worked extraordinarily successfully?-What! beginning work earlier, do you mean?

1635. Beginning work earlier and leaving off earlier. However, that is neither here nor there. You seem to be under the impression that this Bill is mandatory, that it is compulsory ?—Well, of course, it cannot be.

-And it cannot be.

1636. Well, it is not? 1637. All the Bill seeks to provide, and all that it does, is to give people opportunities of starting work earlier, and consequently leaving off work earlier, if they so choose to do ?-Exactly.

1638. And that is all it does; but, as you know perfectly well with your enormous practical experience, no change of this magnitude could possibly be expected to be effective unless it had some sort of legislative sanction behind it ?— Quite so.

1639. That is the whole, that is the kind of sanction that this Bill gives; it enables a widespread economy for this country to be worked upon that basis and that is all?-Well, as I have said, if it were passed I should leave it to the vote of our men to do what they thought best. One man said: We should want more money to spend if we left off work earlier.”

**

1640. That is very much upon a par with what somebody

somebody said who gave evidence objecting to the Bill; because he said some of their people would have to appear in dress clothes soon after four o'clock in the afternoon ?-It is a more serious thing than that. If the workman spent more money on pleasure they would have less for their home.

1641. On the other hand, we shall have the public-houses closed earlier ?-That could be practically done without this Bill. If the publichouses were to close at 10 o'clock it would be a great boon.

1642. It has not been able to be done, so far. -No.

Mr. Holt.

1643. Would you mind telling us what are the hours that this working-man director that you mentioned in your evidence works?-He is on the 12-hour shift-six to six-as an engine-driver. 1644. And these men whom you assembled ?All ordinary day workers.

1645. As to whether they would rather work earlier or later may be considered by the hours they actually do work?-Our hours are from six to eight o'clock, then we give three-quarters of an hour for breakfast, then they go to one o'clock, have from one to two for dinner, and they leave off at five o'clock.

1646. Those are the hours of all the men?All the yard men except the gate-keepers and the engine-drivers; they are on the two-shifts system.

1647. Quite so; but all your other men work those hours?-Except stokers; many of those work on the three-shift system. I was speaking of the day workers. The Bill would not affect the stokers, whose work goes on night and day. 1648. Now about your clerks. What hours do they work?-Nine to five.

Chairman.

1649. I would like to ask you another question, Sir George. Assuming that you approved of some sort of legislative machinery being applied, what sort of alteration of time would you be prepared to recommend. Would it be a gradual alteration as suggested by the Bill, or would you be in favour of, say, an hour for six months?-It would be better, I should think, to have as few alterations as possible; one hour would be better than three twenty minutes.

Mr. Pearce.

1650. I gather from an answer you gave just now that your men all work in shifts?-No. These were all day workers. I spoke about the stokers. It would make no difference to them; they work in three shifts, and their times of change are 10 at night, six in the morning, and two in the day; it would make practically no difference to them. I did not ask them. They were day

Mr. Pearce-continued."

workers, whose time is from six till five, with an hour and three-quarters for meals.

(The Witness withdrew.)

Mr. Willett.

1651. Before you have the next witness, may I say that I have received a letter from the Chamber of Commerce, Derby, which I would like to read to you. It is dated the 27th of May, and says: "Dear Sir,

66

The Waste of Daylight Bill has been to-day considered by the Council of the Derby Chamber of Commerce, and I am desired to inform you that the principle of the Bill has their hearty support, but, in their opinion, the change of time in April and September should be by one alteration of an hour rather than by several alterations of 20 minutes each."

In addition to that, Sir, I have received this memorial from the Albion House Workmen's Club and Institute, Limited, Station Road, Ushaw Moor, Durham. It is dated May 26th, 1908. "Dear Sir,

'I am requested by the Committee of the above Club to inform you that the Daylight Bill has our entire support.'