A correspondent in a letter appearing in yesterday's issue suggested that daylight saving time should be enforced throughout the year. He alleged that the scheme as applied during the past summer has proved a success, and that four out. of five would support it in future. That is open to doubt. In the case of a large number of businesses daylight saving has proved, as it was contended at the time it would, to be the cause of considerable. inconvenience, and this is so particularly, it is stated, in the case of the banks, It is a fact that generally speaking the Chinese have not followed daylight saving, and foreign persons having appointments with Chinese clients have found that while they were observing daylight saving time, the Chinese were not. Shipping and the Customs have stuck to normal time; so have the railways, though many foreign business houses have followed the new arrangement for the benefit of their employees, especially the younger and more athletically inclined. In some cases it is denied that they have received very much benefit, because during the summer 4.30 o'clock real time is considered too early by many to start strenuous games, or if they have been started at that time the players have been too exhausted in the heat to reap much benefit from their endeavours, The decision not to change back to normal time until October 12 should give an excellent opportunity of ascertaining what is likely to be the effect of the scheme upon the shorter winter days, for it might very well be that an extra hour of daylight in the autumn and spring months might be infinitely more valuable than curing the summer. So far as morning newspaper work is concerned daylight saving is an unmitigated nuisance, but that would not induce this journal to oppose daylight saving if it is found to be for the general good. What has to be a: certained before next summer is whether fact it has proved the great boon those supporting claimed it would. On that there is a very considerable division of opinion, and the correspondent who alleges that four out of five favour daylight saving may probably be surprised when investigations along the lines suggested are carried out.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.