I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." [ Laughter. ]

Where are your skates?

On a day such as this I anticipated the observations of hon. Members on the announcement of the name of the Bill dealing with Summer Time. I can only say that I regret that it is impossible for me to introduce a Bill not only to make summer time permanent, but to bring real summer time when we want it. I believe that to-day we are beginning the blooming week known as "Buchan's second cold" period. I would ask hon. Members not to be dismayed by the present conditions.

"Hope springs eternal."

I would ask my hon. Friends not to be dismayed by the conditions of to-day, but to think, if they can, of those glorious spring days in this country—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"]—and the summers which have always been the admiration of other parts of the world. Such is the glorious uncertainty of the British climate, who knows but that tomorrow or Sunday we may have one of those sweet British days, full of sunshine, health and vigour for everyone.

The object of the Bill is to make permanent summer time, for a period of six months from the first Sunday in April until the first Sunday in October. Apart altogether from the question of the period, as far as the establishment permanently of summer time in this country is concerned, it has definitely and enthusiastically a majority of the people in this country in its favour. It was many years ago that Mr. William Willett suggested summer time to the House. I notice from a letter which Mr. Willett's son wrote some time ago that he said the idea of saving daylight occurred to his father when he was riding out before breakfast. He was very keen on the theory that there was a great proportion of oxygen in the air in the early hours, and he set himself the problem, not only of making it avail- able to the mass of workers on their way to work but also of giving them the benefit of those generally wasted hours of the early morning sunshine, on their return to their homes in the evening.

I think the first Bill on this subject was introduced on the 4th February, 1908, by the late Mr. Robert Pearce. On that occasion, the Motion in its favour was carried by 170 votes to two. Hon. Members will be interested to know that of the Tellers on behalf of the minority on that occasion, one was our old friend now Lord Banbury, and the other was my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford University (Lord Hugh Cecil). The opinion in favour of permanent summer time has been growing during the eight years that summer time has been in operation. Following up Mr. Willett'e work in connection with the matter, the Early Closing Association has taken up the subject very vigorously, under its efficient secretary, Captain Larking, and they have done a great deal to bring the matter to the attention of the country, with the result that there is a considerable amount of opinion in its favour.

One reason why I appeal to the House to put a permanent Summer Time Bill on the Statute Book at an early date is one that cannot often be applied to a private Member's Bills, and that is that it costs no money. That point ought to appeal to many hon. Members. Not only will it cost no money, but it will save a great deal of money. It does not give a nasty blow to the taxpayers, as do many proposals made on Fridays. It does not require any Government Department to be set up to administer it, and it does not mean a new horde of civil servants to put it into operation. It is one of those simple Measures which will be of great benefit to the State without putting up all kinds of extra machinery. When the matter was first considered it was estimated that the saving would be very considerable. The saving for a year represents many millions of money. That should commend itself to hon. Members who are in favour of economy.

The first point I desire to emphasise, and I hope that in this I shall have general agreement, even from those hon. Members who are opposed to the Bill, is that it is very desirable that this particular aspect of national life should be made permanent. I do not think that anyone wants Bills every year dealing with this subject. I think everyone is agreed that we had better have legislation on the Statute Book dealing permanently with this question. It is objectionable that every year, or every two or three years, this matter has to be debated, with the result that no one knows exactly where they stand. Therefore, as regards the general principle of the Measure, apart altogether from the question of the exact period, I hope all hon. Members will agree that it is desirable to avoid the recurring discussions and the uncertainty of the present situation.

I understand that the period is the greatest difficulty with which I have to deal, having regard to the notice on the Paper put forward by hon. Members who sit beside me. The period is from the first Sunday in April to the first Sunday in October. There is a very strong argument in favour of that particular period, because it is the period which has been recommended at a recent Conference held in Paris, when representatives of our own country conferred with the delegates of France and Belgium, and they agreed to recommend to their respective countries the period mentioned in this Bill. It is of the first importance to make our summer time coincide if possible with continental summer time. In as much as this agreement has been arrived at however much inconvenience may be caused in certain directions, which I can understand, I think that it is outweighed by the necessity, if possible, of coming to a common agreement with France and Belgium in this matter.

As many hon. Members know, endless inconvenience has been created by the fact that the period of summer-time varies in this country and on the continent. It is very desirable, even from the point of view of cross-channel traffic and matters of that kind, that some reasonable arrangement should be arrived at. This period was agreed to at the Conference and I would ask hon. Members, who may feel some difficulty in determining the exact period, to see that the advantages of coming to some uniform time with countries like France and Belgium outweigh other inconveniences which possibly they may have in mind. It has been suggested to me that the period is too long by one or two weeks either at the beginning or at the end, but inasmuch as this agreement has been arrived at with France and Belgium the benefits outweigh the inconveniences referred to. I understand that the main objection comes from hon. Members who look after so well the interests of agriculture in this House. I have no desire to minimise the difficulties of agriculture at the present time, but it is only fair to say that when the question of summer-time was considered by a strongly representative committee under the Chairmanship of the right hon. Gentleman whom many of us knew in this House, Mr. J. W. Wilson, they did take into account the agricultural objections. In their Report they say:

There are parts of the country where that view is taken very seriously and where they do work the other hour in spite of the law. They go by what they call God's time and not man's time. It is a question of religious belief and is a matter to be taken seriously.

I am anxious that no one should think that I stand to-day as a sort of presumptuous Joshua, who will say:

"Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the Valley of Ajalon."

I have no such intention. The people to whom the hon. Member has referred, no doubt quite sincere people, will have received an assurance from him that there is no attempt to tamper with the dispensation of Providence or the movement of heavenly bodies. Clock time is purely artificial time, and the suggestions made in this Bill will in no way affect anyone's religious views or convictions. I ask the House to consider the various matters that I have put before them. I gather that there are some objections which my hon. Friends desire to voice on the question of the period of summer time. They may well regard that as a point to be debated in Committee. Meanwhile I ask the House to give a unanimous Second Reading to the Bill.

I beg to second the Motion.

I do so with great pleasure, because I believe that the proposals of the Bill will operate to the advantage of all sections of the community. At the same time, I want to say that in seconding this Motion I am speaking only for myself, and not necessarily for others on the Labour Benches. Arising out of all the problems that confront us to-day, we must realise that there is one incontrovertible fact, which is that man has been adapted to the needs of industry rather than industry adapted to the needs of man. I think that is clearly proved by the fact that, so far as the majority of us are concerned, we have to fulfil our various functions in Society during those hours when we might be best enjoying the bountiful gifts of nature. In so far as this Bill gives an extra hour of daylight which will allow people to enjoy those bountiful gifts of nature, it is entitled to the support of all sections of this House. Let us consider the position of those who have to go to the factory, the workshop, or the mine in many cases when it is dark. They work during the hours of daylight, and when they have finished work and expect a certain amount of recreation they find the sun has set, and they are not in a position to enjoy the best possibilities of recreation. There are others who lead sedentary lives and who also work during the hours of daylight and who find themselves with possibly an hour or two at the close of the day.

In giving an extra hour of daylight the Bill is in the interests not only of the workers but of the community as a whole, and I suggest it is in the interests of the business and commercial sections of the community. After all, the fitter a man or a woman is to perform his or her work, the greater the general efficiency, and consequently this would exercise a beneficial effect upon the economic prosperity of the community. Something has been said about its effects upon the home. I hold it will have a beneficial effect upon the home so far as the mother and children are concerned. The mother who is the worker in the domestic workshop will have the same advantage of an extra hour of daylight as her husband who works in some other form of industry, and the more the children are allowed to enjoy the sunlight and fresh air the better for their physical, moral and mental development. There is not much substance in the criticism that it is not a good thing for the children because it does not encourage them to go to sleep early at night. When I was a small child, I did not find it very easy to go to sleep in the dark, because I was afraid of the dark, and I think that remark applies to a great many children. I hold that the Bill will operate to the advantage to all sections of the community.

I should like to deal with certain objections which may be put forward, some of them perhaps frivolous and some of them more serious. It is asked why should we penalise those who wish to follow nocturnal pursuits because it is desired to encourage daylight pursuits. Let us take the case of the hapless victims of Cupid. They always welcome the falling shades of night. The spirit of romance comes in at sunset and goes out at sunrise. I have not had great experience in these matters. [ Laughter. ] Apparently there are hon. Members behind me who have had greater experience and they will be able to explain to the House how it is that those people would be penalised by this proposal. Then we have the case of those professional gentlemen who visit their clients by night. We are told their interests will be affected because they prefer to follow their nefarious profession in the dark and do not like the daylight. I think we shall have no sympathy for that point of view [ Interruption. ] No, I am not referring to Members of Parliament. Then there is the more serious case of the agricultural community. I admit this is a more serious question. We are told the effect of the Bill will be to require the cow to change its habits. The cow is a very patient if rather obstinate animal, and an animal with well regulated habits, I am quite sure it is open to moral persuasion just as hon. Members on the opposite side have been persuaded that a Labour Government is not such a bad thing after all.

We have not been persuaded yet.

Well I thought hon. Members had been persuaded, in view of the fact that they sat up a whole night in order to keep the Labour Government in. I suggest it will not be very difficult to persuade the cow to change its regular habits in order to meet the needs of the community. Speaking more seriously, I agree there is a good deal to be said from the point of view of the agricultural community. It means that their daily habits will have to be altered. But I suggest we have to consider what is best for the interest and the benefit of the vast majority of the community, and, in this case, the interest of the vast majority is to follow this principle. This principle was first brought in during the days of the War, and it was then regarded as being in the interest of the community. It was accepted then by all except the agricultural community. The agricultural community opposed it then, they opposed it in 1922, and they oppose it to-day. I do not wish to minimise that opposition, but it will be remembered that the same opposition has been made to the principle from the beginning. The first Act was introduced in 1916, and was for the term of the War. In 1922, a further Act was passed, and it was an annual Act. If the principle of the first Act was sufficiently satisfactory to be put into an annual Act, it is sufficiently satisfactory to be put into a permanent Act, which is one of the purposes of the Bill. If it is satisfactory from the point of view of the community that the principle should be put into the form of permanent legislation, then it is desirable we should seek to prevent overlapping in relation to ether countries. This Bill, if passed, will prevent overlapping so far as France and Belgium are concerned. It is desirable we should consider all these advantages.

What about the miner?

I daresay the miner will speak for himself. I think a good case can be put from the point of view of the miner who goes to work at 4 o'clock in the morning, works until noon, and then goes to bed until 4 o'clock in the afternoon. I am sure he will appreciate the extra hour of sunlight that would be accorded him by this Bill, so there is something to be said in its favour even from the point of view of the miner. I think the principle contained in the Bill will do a great deal towards increasing the sum total of happiness in all sections of the community and will enable us to develop towards that stage when we may have an Al nation—an object which is agreed upon by all sections of the community. For all these reasons I commend the Bill to the House.

I beg to move to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words

"this House declines to proceed with a Bill which seeks to upset the compromise between all the interests concerned reached less than two years ago, and which would have a most prejudicial effect on the inhabitants of agricultural and mining districts."

If summer comes, I can imagine it will be possible to make out a very good case in favour of summer time, but I think the hon. Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) can hardly be congratulated on the day upon which he has chosen to bring forward a Summer Time Bill, and if any further argument were needed to show the folly of attempting to extend the period of summer time to start at the beginning of April, I feel that the Clerk of the Weather has himself to-day provided that argument. Both the hon. Members who have spoken have argued, and made out a case more or less satisfactory, in favour of summer time, but they have neither of them addressed themselves to the subject of the Bill. The Amendment does not seek to abolish summer time; it merely seeks to retain the status quo, and not to extend the period of summer time at either end, as is proposed by this Bill. There are many people who would like to see summer time abolished altogether. The hon. Member for West Woolwich told us that, in his opinion, there was no doubt that the vast majority of the people of this country were in favour of summer time. He may be right, but I do not think he is, and I do not think either that he would have formed that opinion if he had seen some of the enormous number of letters which have reached me from all parts of England on this question. I will not trouble the House by reading them all, or even the whole of any of them, but there are one or two passages which seem to me to bear upon the point. One correspondent, I believe a gentleman, though I do not know him, says:

"I see you are to lead the opposition to that imbecility called 'summer time.' I wish you success. It was established by a raging, tearing propaganda of lies, misrepresentation, and stupidity, and it is a standing disgrace to a people professing to be intelligent."

That is his view. Another man writes:

"The summer time business has only put people about ever since it has been in operation, and I am of a firm opinion that if this Bill was voted on the same as members are voted to the House of Commons, we should have no more Summer Time Bills."

He suggests that if it were possible to have any form of referendum, the people of this country would negative the proposal altogether. There is one other quotation from these numerous letters that I should like to read, from a man who is opposed to the principle altogether, and he ends up:

"The idea may be very well for London, but it should be known that London does not comprise the British Isles."

The hon. Member for West Woolwich is, if I may say so, a typical London representative, and, I am also quite certain, a very able one in looking after the interests of the middle-class constituency which he represents.

I should like the hon. and gallant Member to know that that is the last designation that ought to be addressed to my constituency, and that from many points of view it is not middle-class, but first class.

I am quite sure that in the hon. Member's opinion any constituency which he represented would be first class, but I still stick to my assertion that he is a very able representative of London, and I doubt, from his speech, whether he has ever realised that there is such a thing as rural England, because it would seem that his only experience of England outside London was, perhaps, an occasional week-end at Margate. He has told us quite frankly that he represents the Early Closing Association. He has read us part of a letter from Lieut. Willett, E.N., in praise of his father and of his father's scheme. I should be extremely sorry to think that Lieut. Willett, or any other son, was lacking in filial affection, but I cannot see that the opinion of this particular individual has any bearing whatever upon the case under consideration. We know that he, like the hon. Member for West Woolwich and others, supports the proposal, but there is no added virtue, to my way of thinking, attaching to this particular name. The hon. Member said that his proposal casts no money burden on the taxpayer and entails the establishment of no new departure. That, no doubt, is perfectly true, but equally my Amendment casts no burden upon the taxpayer nor on a Government Department, but the advantage in that regard of my Amendment is that it casts a substantially less financial burden upon certain sections of the com- munity, and particularly on the agricultural industry.

Again, the hon. Member said—and this, by the way, is the only point, in the course of a long speech, which he adduced in favour of his Bill—that the period which he named was the period approved by France and Belgium. I wonder whether it has occurred to him that, for instance, Scandinavia or the United States of America have other standard times quite different from ours, and that you must always have dividing lines between the various systems of time, and really, to say that we must be ruled by the opinion of France and Belgium, which, by the way, are both considerably south of our country, is to my way of thinking, quite ridiculous. Until a comparatively short time ago, there was always a very considerable difference between the time of this country and the time of any foreign country, including, by the way, Ireland, and those difficulties were by no means insuperable. They did not even present any substantial obstacle to the flow of traffic of any sort or kind. Therefore that argument—the only argument deduced in the course of two speeches in favour of this Bill—entirely collapses. The hon. Member for West Woolwich tells us, what we mostly knew before, that he represents and speaks on behalf of the Early Closing Association. It is obvious that this Association is a class representation. It represents one class of the community, and only one—what might, perhaps, be called the black-coated workers. [AN HON. MEMBER: "No!"] Allow me to have my view. The hon. Member, no doubt, will be able to give his view later on. He entirely overlooks the fact that this proposal is opposed by all those sections of the community who minister to the wants and needs of his constituents in the Early Closing Association.

12 N.

I would like to suggest to the hon. Member that all those engaged in agricultural operations, whether as employers or as employed, strongly oppose this principle. He suggested that it would be quite open to agricultural workers and employers not to adopt the Measure in their own households, but to leave their clocks at Greenwich time. But, surely, it must be obvious, even to a Londoner, what a great amount of confusion it must inevitably cause, if you have two entirely independent times regulating the operations of one small household. The father of the family is working by Greenwich time, and, therefore, expects his meals to be served by Greenwich time. The children of the family are attending school by summer time, and, therefore, their meals would have to be served to correspond with that fictitious state of affairs. Then the housewife would have to do all her marketing, or whatever it was, by summer time. It would create an endless amount of confusion to have two independent sets of time in one smallish household. The miners most strongly resent the proposal, but as I have no personal experience of the miners, I do not propose to touch upon their views more than just to mention them. The theatrical profession states: admit that, speaking broadly, and not with regard to any particular individual, parental control to-day is far less effective than it was in the days when parents realised the truth of the old maxim that to spare the rod was to spoil the child. [An HON. MEMBER: "Did it spoil you?"] The rod was not spared on me, thank Goodness!

Hon. Members who support this Bill seek to extend the duration of the present summer time by starting at the beginning of April and ending at the beginning of October. I wonder if they have realised the time of sunrise and sunset on those days. It is worth noticing that on the 6th April the sun rises—that is, by Greenwich time—at 5.29, and it sets at 6.36. On the 5th October, it rises at 6.10, and sets at 5.28. Clearly those times show that neither the 5th October nor the 6th April can in any sense be considered to be summer. We are, after all, discussing summer time. Therefore, it passes my understanding why the suggestion should be to extend it beyond the well-recognised period of summer. No sane man would say that the year is divided into two sections, summer and winter. We all know that there are four seasons, and that the longest possible duration of summer is some three or three and a half months; and so, to my mind, it is ridiculous to extend the period to cover a complete six months, or, as it well might be by the provisions of the Bill, six months and two weeks.

There are, as I said, many people, particularly in the producing industry, who strongly resent summer time at all, and who would like to see it abolished entirely, but they realise, and so do I, that it is necessary to make a compromise between the different interests affected in this, and in every other case. A workable, though not an entirely satisfactory compromise was arrived at in the year 1922, and was embodied in an Act of Parliament which is now on the Statute Book. That Act provides that summer time shall begin on the day following the third Saturday in April, or if that be Easter Day, the day following the second Saturday in April, and shall last until the day following the third Saturday in September. That Act lapses, but can always be renewed each year without any difficulty whatever, by it being inserted in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, and the Amendment I am moving, if it were carried, would not in any sense abolish summer time. Unfortunately that, we consider, not to be possible under present conditions, but we are prepared to stand by the compromise as it was enacted in 1922, and that is the effect of my Amendment. My Amendment would abolish this iniquitous Bill, and would leave the state of affairs exactly where it is to-day, namely, a period of summer time lasting from the third week in April to the third week in September, which can be enacted without the least trouble each year, if considered desirable. Therefore, I would strongly urge the House to support my Amendment, and to support the workable compromise which was agreed to such a very short while ago.

I beg to second the Amendment.

Had my Amendment on the Paper taken precedence, it would, if carried, have altered summer time entirely. In the circumstances, I agreed to second this Amendment, because, at all events, it gives one more year to carry on the compromise which has been entered into. I have listened with very great attention to the mover of this Bill, and to the hon. Member who seconded it for any new argument in support of the Bill. I have read all the speeches that have been delivered in the past in connection with this matter, and this morning I could find no new argument, except that, for the first time in the discussions that have taken place in this House on summer time, the cow itself has been quoted. Unfortunately it was a Cardiff cow; consequently not a very good representative of its class. But no one would accuse my right hon. Friend on the Front Bench of being a cow!

Let me point out the material fact that this was part and parcel of the panic legislation that was carried during the War. The first Bill that was introduced was carried in 1916. The Act was to be in force— It was introduced on 9th May without a word of discussion. The Second Reading was carried on 11th May without a single word of discussion. The Committe stage and the Third Reading were carried a few days afterwards. The Third Reading was moved at 1.56 a.m. The Report stage and the Third Reading had gone through and the House adjourned at 2 minutes to 2 a.m. 1 suppose it was a kind of sardonic joke that simply because the Members of the House of Commons were kept up till 2 o'clock in the morning they should put it into an Act of Parliament that every body in the United Kingdom should get up and change their clocks at 2 o'clock in the morning—which I hardly think they were likely to do. As a matter of fact it has been an attempt all the way through to fool with the sun. We have not been able to do it, and to-day in the midst of a snow-storm we are again endeavouring to fool with the sun. The House of Commons with all its great powers could not accomplish that, so the next best thing was to start fooling with the clocks. It reminds me of the story of a peppery old colonel in India who had a native servant with a long and unpronounceable name. On one occasion the Colonel took his native servant into the park and dipped him into the pond: when he pulled him out again he said: "There, your name is Mick, and you must not eat meat on Fridays." About a fortnight afterwards he saw his native servant eating a lump of meat. He scowled at him, but the native servant was equal to the emergency, and holding up the meat, he said, "Me no eating meat; me dipped him in the pond and call him fish." Supporters of this Bill come down here and they think they can hold up the sun by dipping him in the Parliamentary pond and saying, "more summer time." I did not agree entirely with the Mover of this Amendment, for he told us—I do not know where he got his information, but he said it seriously—that there were four seasons of the year. That is not my experience. What we have is nine months of cold weather and three months of winter.

There are three very important bodies in this country on whom this Bill will have a serious effect. There is the agricultural industry, which has been dealt with to some extent. I am sorry to say that the Farmers' Union have become parties to the compromise. My right hon. Friend who seconded the adoption of the Bill has said that, in his judgment, the passing of this so-called Summer Time Bill would have a very beneficial effect upon the family life of our country. I traverse that statement. As a matter of fact, it has been destructive of family life in many thousands of our towns and villages throughout the country. It is all very well where children have a nice green sward to play on and a professional governess to look after them and take them to bed, but we must realise that in many towns and villages the only playground is the street, and it is almost impossible for the parents to find where they are. It is quite a different matter. You find playing together in the streets two classes of children, those who attend school and those who do not. They mix and play together, and you cannot get them in at night.

Almost every member of the scholastic profession will tell you that children come to school morning after morning, and before they have been at their lessons for one hour they fall fast asleep, and are quite incapable of obtaining any advantage from the education given to them at the schools. Consequently, on educational grounds I hope this Amendment will be accepted. I know it is true that some of these scholastic authorities replied to a circular in favour of this proposal, but the people who signed the circular are those who get up at 8.30 in the morning when the streets have been well aired, and the second milkman has been round.

I have not the honour of speaking on behalf of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain in connection with this matter, but I happen to be the Secretary of the Cumberland Iron Ore Miners' Association, and they have passed a resolution protesting against any extension of this so-called summer time. May I remind the hon. Member for South Cardiff (Mr. A. Henderson, junior) of the actual position as far as thousands of miners in this country are concerned. The miners have to get up at 4.30 in the morning now in order to proceed by train sometimes eight or 10 miles to their work. If there is one solitary reason why I am hostile to this Measure it is that material alteration has taken place in the law during the last 12 months. In a law suit which came before the House of Lords recently Lord Shaw pointed out that if these miners travelling by train in the early morning met with an accident, as the law is now interpreted, they would receive no compensation in the case of partial incapacity, and even in the case of a fatal accident the dependents would receive no compensation at all. Hon. Members representing mining districts in this country know that the countryside railway stations are not like Euston or Waterloo. Sometimes they consist of two or three planks nailed together, and sometimes they are not even nailed together. Sometimes the miners have to walk along the railway siding to get into the station where there is a lamp, and occasionally they have to strike a match to see the lamp.

Instead of getting up at 4.30 in the morning under this Bill these men would be compelled to get up at 3.30. I am sorry we have only one lady representative in the House this morning, because this is a question which materially affects the wives of miners, and it reduces their life to absolute drudgery. One great characteristic about a miner's wife is that she always sticks up for her husband, and she takes care that he never goes out in the early morning without a meal. Consequently she has to get up an hour before her husband in order to prepare his meal. As I have said this reduces the life of the miner's wife to a condition of drudgery, and besides this it tends to multiply the number of accidents to which the miner is exposed. On that account I think this Bill should be rejected by all those who represent the miners of this country.

With regard to the farmers, there is common agreement that the agricultural workers of this country have to work by the sun, and not by the clock. I have been wondering if there is any combination of clock repairers at the back of this Bill. The farmer cannot carry on his work under these conditions, because he has to make hay while the sun shines. I know that in the county of Cumberland we have a large number of hills, and wherever you have hills you find hollows. At such an early hour in the morning the farmer finds those hollows thick with mist, which is almost impenetrable, and therefore you are asking the farmer to pay for hours of work when his men cannot work, and if they did they would be doing work of a destructive character. I think this House ought to stop fooling with the sun, because we have something else to fool with.

The hon. Member who introduced this Bill quoted the opinion of one doctor who said this Measure would be beneficial to the children. There is no doubt it will be beneficial to the doctor, and I have not the slightest doubt I could find a thousand doctors who would agree that it would be beneficial to the profession. Although I am not in very great love with the compromise, still, under present circumstances, and in the hope and belief that this Government will be in power this time 12 months, I second this Amendment in the hope of being here next year to move the rejection of the Bill altogether.

I join with the hon. Member for West Dorset (Major Colfox) in his admiration for the versatility of the hon. Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood), but I cannot acquit him of ambition. Not content with recently presiding, like Bellona, over the clash of war and prefacing, if not celebrating, the wrath of Achilles, he is now engaged, like another Phaèthon, in snatching the reins of the chariot of the sun from Phoebus himself. But if I may make an abrupt descent from mythology to the farmyard, I should like to address a very earnest appeal to this honourable House on behalf of a very respectable body of animals, not indeed voiceless themselves, but seldom, or never, admitted to the precincts of this House. I wish to urge a very earnest appeal to this House on behalf of the cows. Most Members of this House at one period or another of their existence have suffered these animals to enter into a quasi-parental relation, and I think the time has come now for them to display and perform some of their quasi-filial duties and sink some of their own prejudices in favour of the susceptibilities of these interesting animals. It may not be within the knowledge of the House that these animals are at present suffering from a distressing complaint called foot-and-mouth disease. I should be very happy if I could flatter myself that I had the distinction of acquainting the House with that fact. I think it must lie heavy on the conscience of the hon. Member for West Woolwich when he considers the afflictions that he has piled on top of that already overwhelming weight of woe. There is an epigram—

"Quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini,"

What foot-and-mouth have left undone in completing the tragedy of the domestic cow, the hon. Member for West Woolwich has ended. I said that I could not acquit the hon. Member for West Woolwich of ambition. He has disclaimed being one of the following of Joshua, but I should hesitate to bring to his mind the case of Hezekiah, because he only turned his attention to the almanac on his deathbed, and we happily have the hon. Member for West Woolwich in full health and strength here present before us, and long may we continue to enjoy that privilege. But I think, nevertheless, that he is ambitious. He wishes that the sundials throughout the length and breadth of the land, like deserted altars, should testify to the might and majesty of the hon. Member for West Woolwich. He does not hesitate to place himself third on the roll of illustrious names—Julius Cæsar, Pope Gregory, and the hon. Member for West Woolwich. Yesterday the House looked well after its own interests. I beg it to-day to continue the good work and not to deprive itself of an annual privilege. There was a very distinguished Member of this House, now removed to a higher sphere, who annually delighted this House by devoting great destructive abilities to constructive work. I hope that the House will not deprive itself of the priceless privilege of annually seeing the hon. Member for West Woolwich riding cherubically on the clouds and directing the motions of the heavenly bodies. I beg the House to practice true temperance and not drink down the delicious privilege in one gulp, but to take it in annual sips, and therefore to vote against the Bill.

I will not follow the hon. Member who has exhausted all the resources of biology, theology and mythology, in his desire to protect the cow and in his desire to find epithets and descriptions worthy of my hon. Friend the Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood). I rise only for a few moments for the purpose of supporting this Bill because I think it is an effort to put a final touch to a proposal which launched by a few enthusiasts in a sea of ridicule has during the last 16 years won the whole-hearted approval of the vast majority of the people of this country. When the original Daylight Saving Bill of 1908 was first introduced into this House and referred to the Select Committee of which my father was Chairman, one of the chief criticisms levelled against it was that it would serve to upset the relationship of our time with that of the rest of the world, and that it would cause endless confusion and inconvenience in our intercourse with our European neighbours. That has been proved in these years to have had very little foundation. It had some substance and there is no doubt that it would have saved a great deal of trouble to business people and to individuals if the periods of summer time for the Western European States could be made to synchronise exactly. To achieve that, I take it is one of the main purposes of this Bill, and also to introduce some system into our practice, whereby further legislation would no longer be necessary and to enable people to know beforehand exactly when the changes to and from summer time are likely to take place in each year.

The hon. Baronet has just said that this Bill, if it became an Act, would help people to know when summer time was going to begin and end, but they know that now. Under the Act of 1922, if it is in force, it begins on a certain day and ends on a certain day, and the only alternative is to put that Act into operation or not to put it into operation. The argument, therefore, that we do not know, entirely falls to the ground.

My hon. and gallant Friend has himself proved my point, because he has said that we know now—when a certain Act is in force; but it has to be put into force every year, and no one knows from year to year whether it will be put into force, or whether the House of Commons may not one day have a majority, which it has not got to-day, I trust, which may be against the whole principle of summer time, and, therefore, may not put into force the Act which my hon. and gallant Friend mentioned. Therefore, I repeat that I hope this House will give this Bill a Second Read- ing, and that it will eventually pass into law. The work of Mr. Willett, to which he gave so many years of his life, will then have been achieved, and a great and, I trust, a permanent victory will have been won by common sense over ancient prejudice. That is an argument which I think ought to appeal to the present Government, and I hope it will enlist their support, whether or no it appeals to the Members of that party who in July, 1908, refused to give facilities for the original Measure.

I know that there are some people who object to the establishment of summer time as a permanent institution, because they think that it is essentially a War Measure, and that, as such, it should be got rid of as soon as possible. The mistake that they make is that it is not at all a War Measure. It is true that it required a world War to bring it into existence, but that is a testimony only of the extraordinary resistance of the conservatism of the great masses of the people where any of their habits or interests are touched. Daylight saving was, and is, essentially a peace proposal, and the arguments for this proposal are based much more on conditions of peace than on conditions of war. The realities of war broke down that age-long convention under which we were the slaves of the clock. Why should we go back to those chains, now that the War has come to an end? I realise, however, that there are many sections of the community who have always kept themselves free from that particular slavery. Agriculture has always folllowed summer time, and I realise that, now that the rest of the population have been converted to their point of view, a good deal of inconvenience is caused to them. In the case of fishermen also, I believe, the same objection applies, for in some cases they have now to bring their fish earlier to market, which causes them inconvenience and, I believe, financial loss. Those objections are very much to be regretted, but, on the other side of the account, there is the very considerable gain to the whole of the rest of the community, which the experience of the War and post-War years has proved to be very real. I believe that the objections raised by the agriculturalists and by others can in large measure be accommodated, and, anyhow, I am certain that most of the objections and criticisms which bulked so largely in the Debates of 1908 and 1909 have been proved to have been without foundation. One of the chief criticisms was that summer time would encourage overtime to be worked. I believe that the exact opposite has occurred. The possibility of a reasonable period of recreation in daylight after the day's work is a temptation not to work overtime, but to get out into the open air. I do not want to let my enthusiasm for this Bill carry me into flogging a dead horse. The hon. and gallant Member who moved this Amendment made a very witty speech, but to mind it was an illogical speech. He said that he was in favour of summer time, but he then proceeded to make a speech which was certainly against summer time.

I never said that for one moment I was in favour of summer time. In fact, I said I was against it altogether, but that I realised that a compromise had been arrived at, and that that compromise should be stuck to.

I am very glad to hear that. I must say that I had not gathered it. My hon. and gallant Friend's speech was a difficult one to follow. He accused my hon. Friend the Member for West Woolwich of having, in the course of a long speech, only made one point. I thought that my hon. and gallant Friend, in the course of an equally long speech, had not made any point at all. In fact, I thought his speech was very much like the Irishman's horse, which had only two faults1—the one that it was very difficult to catch, and the other that, if you did catch it, it was not worth catching. The last thing I wish to do is to be in the least controversial, and, therefore, I will conclude by again saying how much I support this proposal, and I should like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the great majority of the people of these islands have got used to summer time. They have not only got used to it, but they have got into the habit of liking it and looking forward to it.

I, like other Members of the House, have received many letters from farmers and farmers' unions objecting to the breaking of the compromise which was arranged in 1922. I, representing an agricultural constituency, am bound to give consideration to their views, and shall, therefore, support the Amendment. I particularly want, however, to draw the attention of the House to another aspect of this question, which has not yet been touched upon at all. The hon. Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) is a very worthy successor of the representative of the Early Closing Association who formerly sat in this House, Lord Avebury; but I do not want the House to be under any misunderstanding as to what the Early Closing Association is, or to take it too seriously. The hon. and gallant Member who moved this Amendment was under the impression that the Early Closing Association represented the shop-workers. It does not represent the shop-workers at all; it represents the shopkeepers, and the hon. Member for West Woolwich is presenting the point of view of the shopkeepers to this House this morning. I want to draw attention to the Report of the Committee which was set up to go into this matter and inquire into the working of this proposal in 1917. They said:

"Suggestions were made during the summer-time period that advantage was being taken of the extra hour's daylight by shopkeepers to keep their shops open an hour longer, and the matter was raised in the House of Commons and, to some extent, discussed in the Press. The allegation was a serious one, particularly in view of the fact that shop assistants are clearly amongst those who stand to gain most by summer time."

That is true. Evidence was produced before that Committee to show that in all parts of the country shopkeepers were, in fact, taking advantage of the extra hour of daylight to keep their shops open, working their assistants longer. The conclusions of the Committee were these:—

"Mr. Turner's statements were not, how-ever, supported by the evidence which we received from other sources."

They go on to say:

"There is no doubt that the great mass of opinion in the distributive trades, and public opinion generally, is against the practice of keeping open longer, and, so far as concerns establishments which employ assistants, we cannot help thinking that it is never likely to spread beyond a very small and not over-reputable minority of shopkeepers."

In conclusion they say:

"We think, therefore, that a watch should be kept on the matter by the Home Office and the local authorities."

I should like to ask the Under-Secretary for the Home Office if a watch has been kept, what is the result of their watch and whether there has been an extension of the hour during which shops are kept open during summer time. We are not disputing that summer time is of some advantage to those who follow sedentary occupations, in that they can enjoy sunshine for one hour longer but they ought to be able to enjoy that period and not be deprived of it. There should accompany the permanency of this Act something which is going to safeguard the interests of those who work in shops, so that they will not be called upon to work an extra hour. As far as the Shop Assistants Union is concerned it states that:

"It is bound in the interests of its members to oppose the renewal of the Summer Time Act, unless it is accompanied by limitation of hours of labour for shop assistants, or some Measure which will prevent the extension of their hours of labour."

I have evidence from all parts of the country which proves conclusively that during summer time period shopkeepers have kept their shops open longer, and assistants have been kept longer at work. The "Grocers' Gazette," one of the grocery trade papers, says:

"A correspondent draws our attention to the fact that not a few shopkeepers are sacrificing the boon conferred by the Summer Time Acts by keeping open an hour or more later, according to Parliamentary time, than hitherto. The complaint is by no means an isolated one."

A Wolverhampton newspaper, the "Express and Star," says:

"It does appear, however, that an attempt is being made both in Wolverhampton and Birmingham to deprive shop assistants of the obvious benefits of daylight saving. From what I have been able to gather, laxity on the part of some employers in the matter of closing prevails in each town."

I sincerely appeal to the House that any Measure of this sort which is likely to increase the number of hours which the workers are called upon to work, ought to be opposed. If it is going to confer a benefit upon one section of the community at the expense of the rest it cannot be considered to be of general good. I very respectfully urge that if this Bill is to be made permanent, there ought to accompany it some safeguard for those who work in shops and warehouses.

In rising to support the Amendment, I wish to make clear to the House that the Amendment does not go far enough to satisfy the people whose case I wish to bring before the notice of the House—the Scottish farmer and the man who works for him. The position of the Scottish Farmers' Union is that they would like to see summer time abolished, but they recognise that that is not practical. They have tried the period arrived at by compromise in 1922, and have found that it is detrimental to their work. They therefore desire to see the period restricted to the four months of May, June, July and August, and view with great anxiety, I think I may say with great dread, the passing into law of the Bill, the Second Reading of which has been moved to-day.

I do not think the House realises the peculiar climatic conditions of many parts of Scotland. Do we realise, for instance, that even in the four months for which the Scottish farmers are prepared to concede the principle of summer time, there are very often early frosts which make the land unworkable when the horses are first yoked. Yoking time in many parts of Scotland is as early as 6.30 normally, which means 5.30 summer time. During the four months that the Scottish farmers are prepared to concede summer time, serious difficulty is caused by the working of this system. If we prolong the period to cover the whole of April, we must remember that there is a great deal more early frost in that month, while in September there are not only frequent early frosts but heavy dews in the early morning, which make it impossible to gather in the harvest.

The House must realise that if when the farm-workers come to work the land is unworkable, and the harvest cannot be reaped, that obviously must disorganise the work on the farm. A man starts at one job and finds it is hopeless and he is sent to another job, and later in the day he goes back to the first job. That means inevitable loss of time, and I am told that it is apt to mean loss of temper on both sides. It is very apt, also, to mean long hours, as has been admitted to-day in more quarters than one. How it could possibly mean the shortening of hours I cannot see. Farm work has to be got through and has often to be got through under great pressure because of the fear of bad weather. If you lose an hour or two in the morning because of early frost or heavy dew, obviously you may have to ask your men to remain after normal hours, and that means longer working hours for the men and the expense of overtime payment for the farmer.

It is computed by the Scottish farmers that on the days when there are these early frosts or heavy dews, they lose two hours of working time. Summer time takes from them an hour of good work in the afternoon, and substitutes for it an hour in the early morning which is no use to them. It is also, I think, generally recognised among the farming community that in September one hour in the afternoon is worth perhaps three hours in the early morning. So much for the position of the arable farmer under this sytem.

Then we come to the question of the dairy farmers. A great deal of attention has been devoted to that very important animal the cow. I do not wish to minimise the vital service that the cow renders to the nation, but I do say that I have even more consideration for the man or the woman who milks the cow than for the cow herself. The cow, I am told, is an adaptable animal, and can be accustomed to change of hour, provided the period at which she is milked is regular, but in order to get the milk to our great cities, the milk-man or milk-woman has to rise between three and four o'clock in the morning at normal times. Hon. Members can imagine the hardship it must mean, in April or September, having to rise even an hour earlier than that very early hour. The case of the man who goes out to his work early has been most eloquently and forcibly stated by the hon. Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Gavan-Duffy) in a way that I cannot attempt to rival. I would ask hon. Members whether they recollect the little poem, by Robert Louis Stevenson, in which he decribes the feelings of a child: further hardship on the farmer. At two or three in the morning it is pitch-dark. It is impossible to find the cow. The cow has, therefore, to be brought into the barn overnight, and that means hand feeding and additional expense to the farmer, another handicap that this system imposes. It has already been pointed out in this debate how impossible it is for the dairy farmer to cut himself off from the city he supplies. The city must get the milk, and he must rise at that hour in order to supply the city. There is a further point I should like to emphasise, as to the disorganisation in the work of the home which this Bill may well cause. The child has to go to school by Summer Time, and if you have two sets of time in the home it means women are kept cooking meals all day, and lives that are already lives of toil, and often of drudgery, will be made even harder. I do not think enough has been said, either, of the inconvenience and hardship to the child who carries the early morning milk. Up and down the country there are a great many children carrying milk in the cities in the early morning, and it will be very cold and hard work for those children in the month of September.

1.0 P.M.

Farmers all over Scotland are emphatic in their opposition to the Bill. This measure of Summer Time was originally proposed to save fuel and light. I hope I have shown that it means waste of light, and possibly of fuel and feeding to the farmer, if the period is extended too long. The only claim, therefor, or the main claim, on behalf of the Bill to -day is that it provides more facilities for out-door recreation. I do not wish to say a word against the importance of out-door recreation. Every year the country is more and more realising how necessary it is, particularly for young people, but I do not think we can put the legitimate interest of recreation against the question of the nation's food supply. It is not a case of one man's meat being another man's poison, but of one man's play being poison to another man. I read the other day with great interest of a deputation which went to the late Home Secretary last November to press for the Measure which the hon. Member for West Woolwich has introduced. It was noticeable that that deputation made but the Scantiest reference to the difficulties the Bill imposes on agriculture. I think there was only one reference, and that a rather trivial and jesting reference to the cow. The deputation was informed by the late. Home Secretary that it was no laughing matter for agriculturists, and that their difficulty in this matter must be taken seriously. The late Home Secretary had the advantage of representing an agricultural constituency and therefore had some knowledge of how this affected agriculture. He promised that he would hear the views of agriculturists, on this matter, but I do not think he was able to do so in consequence of the change of Government. I should like to know whether his successor has heard the views of agriculturists or, if not, whether they have been represented to him by the Minister for Agriculture and the Secretary for Scotland. Agriculturists are entitled to ask if their views have been put forward in this matter, because it is one of very great moment to them.

It is a question of climate. The Government appeared to be concerned, when the deputation was received the other day, with getting an agreement with France and Belgium on the matter. I agree that it is very desirable in the interests of those who wish to go abroad for an Easter trip, or to go abroad for business purposes, to have an agreement with our friends abroad, but I do submit that the first duty of the Government is to consider the interests of its own people, particularly as this affects a matter so vital to the welfare of the country as agriculture is. It is climate that is at the root of all the trouble, and no resolution of any Mansion House meeting, however well and influentially attended, and no legislation of Parliament, can alter our climate by one jot or tittle. Therefore, the views of agriculturists must command the most careful attention. As I have said, the farmers of Scotland would like to see summer time abolished altogether, but they recognise that is quite impracticable. They have tried the compromise of two years ago, and they consider that it does impose great disabilities upon them, particularly the continuance of the period so far into September, because September is our harvest month. Therefore they are asking with great emphasis and with great insistence that summer time should be restricted to the four months I have mentioned. I am told there is no subject on which the farmers of Scotland are more unanimous than this, and I have also heard it stated on good authority that the farm workers are equally opposed to it. I do not wish to be sectional in anything I have said, for we have to do the best we can for the country as a whole. We must weigh one set of interests against another, and do justice to all; but I do submit that the issues in this case are not equally balanced. It is a question of recreation, of more recreation, against a question of the nation's food supply, and I ask the House to refuse to give a Second Reading to a Bill which would make permanent a period of summer time which, in the opinion of those best able to judge, would be a very heavy blow at a vital industry which we all know is going through a very difficult time at present.

I have known Members of Parliament of long experience who followed the rule of giving every Bill a Second Beading, on the principle that its aims should be discussed, and that since it can be improved or in any way changed in Committee complete control of the Bill is maintained until the Third Reading. I am not sure that that is a good rule, but it is a rule that one might follow in a Bill like this. There are two things in this Bill, and only two. One is that summer time is made permanent, and year after year people know what they have got to deal with; and the second is that the period of summer time is prolonged. I am not in favour of prolonging summer time. I represent an agricultural constituency, and agriculturists are opposed to summer time altogether. They think, however, that if we must have it it should be as short as possible. I am prepared then to support the Bill, in so far as it makes summer time permanent. I think that is necessary for travel and Continental considerations. It is essential that the time should be known and should be permanent, not only here, but on the Continent. The advantages of summer time in the cities have been demonstrated to be very great indeed. It has not been shown that health has in any way suffered because of the introduction of summer time. I am prepared, therefore, to vote for the Second Reading in the hope that the time may be contracted to the minimum, but, if it is not, I reserve my right to vote against it on the Third Reading. As we have arrived already at a compromise and those agriculturists and mining interests which have opposed it in the past have already agreed to the compromise—[HON MEMBERS: "No!"] They have accepted it as a concession to their view for the time being. We must make it permanent, and upstairs we can do our best to still further shorten even the existing time.

I desire to oppose the Bill. I think all who can speak in any degree at all for agricultural divisions are agreed that agricultural opinion is solidly against the Bill, and even against the Measure that is already on the Statute Book. Although we on these benches arc usually associated with industrial areas and industry generally, a good many of us represent, however inadequately, agricultural divisions, which is the case of the hon. Members for West Stirling, Peebles, Midlothian, and others. One advantage of this Parliament is that one does not require to go outside one's own party for opponents almost on any Measure. I gave my hon. Friend the Member for South Cardiff (Mr. A. Henderson, Junr.) notice that I was going to make a brutal and personal attack upon him. He has consequently disappeared. I want to deal with the people who are in my own party and leave those opposite and below the Gangway to deal with theirs. The hon. Member for South Cardiff admitted that 'he was not an agriculturist, and he gave us information as to how we should apply this Measure in the interests of agriculture. He is not a father, and he gave us advice as to how this was beneficial to children. He admited that he was not a romanticist, and he told how delightful it was to have romance in the daytime instead of in the dusk. I believe the hon. Member is a barrister, and if he were not a barrister I am sure, following that procedure, he would give us a most learned disquisition on the law.

I object to this on general grounds as well as from the point of view of agriculture. I want to put this, so far as my observation goes, being the proud father of three very fine children, that it is decidedly bad for children, despite what the hon. Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) has said about the effect of good parental control. You may have in any row of cottages or in any tenement 99 children such as you might imagine I was when I was young, very quiet and obedient and amenable to discipline and parental authority, who would be sent to-bed at the proper hour, allowing for the change of the clock. But you might have, on the other hand, a child whom you might imagine as a very miniature and young edition of the Member for West Woolwich, who deliberately pursued even then obstructionist tactics, to the disadvantage of the other 99 who were safely put away in bed. That is a very serious point, that even in any row or any tenement where there are one or two children who are not subjected to proper parental authority or, being subjected to it, defy it, they may disturb the night's sleep seriously of all the other children in the vicinity. I have by observation come to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that this is a serious affair for little kiddies who have to get up in the morning and go to school. For that reason alone I object to the Bill. I am not surprised that one can get a doctor to say this is beneficial to children. I agree one can get expert evidence, at the proper fee, to support any point of view. I recollect that during the War there were doctors who were not above seeking to prove, while there was a butter shortage, that margarine was the most splendid thing in the world and was even superior to butter, and I believe they themselves, in order that we ordinary people should nave the advantage of margarine, continued eating butter. With regard to industry, there was an interjection respecting miners. I have never been an agriculturist. It is one of the few things I have not been. But I have been a miner, and the curious thing about my hon. Friend who made the remark was that he talked of even a miner being able to get an hour's daylight out of the shift. But he suffered from the curious illusion that today there is only one shift in a coal mine. Obviously, if one coal miner on one shift during the day gains an hour of daylight another man upon another shift must lose it, unless the proposal of the Bill is not only to shift the clock but to arrange that there are 25 hours in the day instead of 24.

A word with regard to agriculture. I represent a division, quite inefficiently, I fear, from the agricultural point of view. Where I do not know the conditions of an industry or a profession I am content to take the opinion of those who do know it and are involved in it. I have had from every part of my division unanimous disappproval of this Measure, and even a unanimous desire, were it practicable, to absolutely repeal the existing Measure, because I think it goes upon a fundamental fallacy. It is that you can harness the tides to a railway time-table. That cannot be done. You can, I agree, where it is a question of running an industry by the mere pressing of a button or the setting in motion of certain machinery, adjust that industry to the clock, but when the fundamentals of that industry are based upon natural and not artificial or manufactured conditions it cannot be done, and you cannot arrange when frost shall come in the morning or when the cows will like to get up in the morning. You cannot get those things to fit in with Bradshaw and the A.B.C. time-table, and that is what is going on here. It is somewhat amusing indeed to have this thing called a Summer Time Bill. You may get up in certain parts of Scotland and instead of having summer time you will discover King Winter with his whiskers bristling with frost, and we are calling it summer time. That, of course, means that you are putting on an hour's frost and seriously disturbing by that one hour the work of the agricultural community, which has those effects which the Noble Lady the Member for Perth (Duchess of Atholl) has pointed out. I hope this Measure will be very definitely rejected, and I hope further that when the Measure on the Statute Book comes again before the House, as I believe it will, we shall get back to the consideration of natural conditions and have a little less to do with artificial conditions, even if it is a benefit to certain industrial sections of the community and perhaps East Coast landladies, who are, perhaps, concerned with saving their gas bills, and so seriously disturbing the health of the boarders that they will be able to eat little or nothing during the period that they are staying there. But, seriously, and that apart, I do hope that the House will definitely reject this Measure.

I rise to ask the House to give a Second Reading to this Bill. At the same time I am impressed by the weight of the agricultural arguments, more particularly those advanced by Members of Scottish constituencies which were so well stated by the Noble Lady the Member for Perth (Duchess of Atholl), in favour of the restriction of the number of months during which summer time should prevail, and I hope that a Clause may be moved in Committee which will have that effect. I intervene in this discussion not to reiterate the general arguments in favour of summer time, which I believe to be convincing provided that the term is reasonably restricted, but in order to draw attention to the inquiry which was instituted on my instructions when I was President of the Board of Education into the effect of summer time on the health of the children.

I was very much impressed by the objections which reached me from many quarters as to the possible prejudicial influence of summer time upon the health of the children and I instituted an inquiry into the matter. As a result of that inquiry I found that 183 authorities with an average attendance of 3,277,842 children were in favour of summer time; 89 authorities representing an average attendance of 1,600,429 children considered that the Act should be amended, and 57 authorities with an average attendance of 232,402 children had not formed any definite opinion one way or another. In other words the opinion of the education authorities, so far as it is of any value, in favour of the Act was almost exactly two to one and many of the authorities who gave an opinion adverse to the Act added that, in their view, the defects of the lack of sleep etc. which had been noticed were not in reality inherent in the working of the Summer Time Act provided that parents be properly instructed as to the difference in summer time.

In general the conclusion which the Board of Education reached was that the Summer Time Act had not been to schoolchildren, as apart from the population as a whole, any positive advantage. On the other hand they considered that most of the disadvantages had been removed in 1921, and that what was attributed to the Summer Time Act might be attributed with equal probability to other causes, and the only disadvantages to children which, in their opinion, could be accepted fully was that the Summer Time Act in present conditions does cause some agggravation of the serious evil of lack of sufficient sleep among children, but the Board considered finally that this aggravation was relatively slight and could usually be avoided by reasonable domestic care. That is the result of very careful inquiry and I think that it at any rate has this negative advantage that it disposes of the prejudice against the Summer Time Act which is founded upon this alleged defect of curtailing the hours of sleep anong children.

On the other hand it has certain positive advantages. During the real summer, which unfortunately is very short in England and is shorter still in Scotland, it does enable school-children to carry on a great deal of their school work before the great heat of the middle of the day. That is a distinct educational advantage. It does give the children greater opportunities of recreation in the company of their parents in the evening hours of summer. As I have said, I do not wish to enter into the general arguments in favour of the Act, but I believe that they are overwhelming. On the other hand I earnestly hope that due consideration will be given in Committee to the arguments coming from agricultural constituencies in favour of the restriction of the number of months within which this Act is to apply.

I cannot help thinking that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. Fisher) has not realised what the effect of supporting the Second Reading of this Bill would be. If he did he would not vote in favour of it. There is in existence to-day the Summer Time Act, 1922, under which definite dates for the commencement and expiration of summer time are fixed. Those dates are, commencement on the third Sunday in April and termination on the third Sunday in September. If this Bill be rejected summer time is not affected. The-Act remains in existence, and will be continued in the ordinary way by the Measure being included in the Expiring Laws (Continuance) Act. I do not agree with the suggestion of the hon. Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) that there is anything gained by making this time permanent, as it was called, by this particular Bill because when a Measure is included in the Expiring Laws (Continuance) Act it cannot be varied by any Amendment moved in the House of Commons. It can only be altered by having a fresh Bill brought in. Therefore to alter the existing dates for summer time would require the introduction of a fresh Measure into the House of Commons.

The reason I support this Amendment is this. Where you have greatly conflicting interests, and where those interests, after full discussion and consideration, have arrived at a compromise in this House as recently as last July, there is no reason for altering it and no reason has been shown. Let me call attention to one or two facts with respect to previous Measures that have been passed. The first Summer Time Act was passed in 1916. Under that Act it was left to be fixed by Order in Council when summer time should commence and when it should expire. That Act was continued under the emergency legislation that we had up to 1922, and the days were variable, being fixed by Orders in Council. In 1917 a Departmental Committee was set up, under the chairmanship of the Right Hon. J. W. Wilson. That Committee heard the evidence of all concerned. The extract which was read by the hon. Member for West Woolwich did not deal in full with the whole of the objections that could be raised to the proposal. All the facts were taken into consideration by the Departmental Committee and that Committee made a recommendation which has not been mentioned. It recommended that summer time should commence from the second Sunday in April and should finish on the third Sunday in September. Then the Bill of 1922 as originally introduced was to fix those dates. When it came before the House there was a discussion very similar to that which we have had to-day. The Home Secretary (Mr. Shortt) stated that he was satisfied that a case had been made by the Opposition, so far as the dates of commencement and expiration were concerned, and he promised that if he got a Second Reading of the Bill he would try to arrive at a compromise of the dates.

The Bill went before a Committee, and it was there compromised, as Mr. Shortt stated on the Third Reading of the Bill. The only extension that was given to the rural interests was that the time was shortened by one week, and commenced from the third Sunday in April and expired on the third Sunday in September. That made the beginning of the operation of the Act a week later than had been originally proposed. What we are discussing to-day is whether that compromise should be upset, and whether summer time should begin on 1st April or a later date in the month, and whether it should end on 15th September or the 1st of October. There is a fortnight at each end of the period which we are considering. Those fortnights are most important from the countryman's point of view. I am not opposed to summer time. I think it is absolutely vital to the townsman. To agriculture the Bill is useless. It clogs the industry, it makes farming more costly, because more overtime has to be paid for. It is mainly in the interests of the men engaged in that industry and the country people generally that I speak. There is the question of cows getting used to being milked at a different time. There is the difficulty of finding cows in the dark. The time that the farmer can keep is cattle in the field is curtailed, because in the morning the men cannot find them. The first fortnight in April and the last fortnight in September are the most important. Think of the 11 days of the present month that have passed. We have had frost and snow practically every morning. Are we going to allow hardship to be inflicted on country children, who often have to walk two or three miles to school? Are they to be sent to school an hour earlier on such mornings as we have recently had? Are the old people to turn out an hour earlier before the sun has warmed the air? Are the men to get up the cattle an hour earlier to milk them, and the horseman to feed their horses? Are they to be made to get-up an hour earlier in the dark? Why should they not have things made easier?

What advantage is this proposal to town children or town people? Practically none. The sun does not rise on 1st April till 5.40 a.m. and it sets at 6.30 p.m. On 14th April it rises at 5.10 a.m. What can the townsman gain in the last fortnight of September, in comparison with the disadvantages that are being put on everyone. I represent a constituency where the chief industry is agriculture, but there is also a large residential population. I do not see why they should be turned out on these very cold mornings before the sun has warmed the air. I recognise that in the country villages and towns the shopkeeping class and the clerk class desire summer time, and I want them to keep it; tout the extra fortnight in April and in September is of no real benefit to them. A compromise was arrived at and no reason has been shown for departing from it. I agree with every word that the last speaker said about the health of the children and the effect of summer time on their education. I ask him, however, whether he does not agree that the extra fortnight in September is an absolute disadvantage to country children who have to walk two or three miles to school in the cold and dark. For these reasons and in view of the fact that the rejection of the Bill will not endanger summer time at all— the only effect of the rejection will be to continue the present Act and the present hours—I ask the House to vote against the Second Reading.

It may be convenient if I intervene in the discussion at this juncture to state that the Government consider it very desirable that this Bill should have its Second Reading to-day. The question is, of course, one for the House to decide, but I repeat that, in the view of the Home Office and of the Government, it is very desirable that the Bill should receive a Second Reading. I will give some reasons for that attitude: There is no gainsaying that sufficient inquiry has already been conducted into the subject. If anyone cares to read the documents to which reference has been made to-day, they will find that the Committee which sat in 1917 and reported in that year gave as its first conclusion the following words: mously in the way I have indicated. That, I think, is one very strong reason why we should pass this Bill, and turn what has been an annual enactment into a permanent Measure. It may interest the House if I give figures showing the numbers of weeks which have been included in the summer time Measures of the past, and hon. Members will be interested to note also how little variation there has been. In 1917 summer time consisted of 23 weeks; in 1918 of 27 weeks; in 1919 of 26 weeks, and in 1920 there were 30 weeks of summer time; the number was increased in that year consequent upon the coal-mining dispute. Then we returned to normal conditions, and in 1921 the number of weeks was 26; in 1922 the number was 28, and in 1923 the number of weeks was only 21. For 1924 the number of weeks in summer time will approximately be 23. This Bill aims, as it main objective, to standardise the number of weeks for the future at approximately 26.

It may be well to enlarge a little on the very clear statement made by the hon. Member for East Grinstead (Sir H. Cautley), in order to show the distinction between the provisions of the present Summer Time Act and the provisions of this Bill. The Act of 1922 expires each year unless extended, and the period of summer time under that Act is from the third Saturday in April until the third Saturday in September. That is the Act as it now stands. This Bill, however, would give us a permanent summer time extending from the first Saturday in April to the first Saturday in October, or two weeks longer at each end. That will show the House the exact relationship of the present Act to the Bill which we are now considering.

I know full well the various interests involved in a Measure of this kind. I am not without appreciation, and the Government are not without appreciation, of the great difficulties of the agriculturists; and I may say incidentally that when this subject has been under discussion in France the French Government have had to meet exactly the same problem as we have had to meet here. Nor am I without appreciation of the position of the miner. I have been a coal-miner myself, and I know a little about that side of the case. I represent a mining division, and I am the last to forget what summer time, or a change of the time in any way, will do for the mining population of this country. But if we take into account all the interests concerned, I am convinced that there is a preponderating opinion in this country in favour not only of regulating summer time, but of the permanent regulation of summer time. I am not affected in the least by arguments as to the cow and the sun. I hold the opinion that it is the duty of men and women to conquer and utilise the forces of nature to the best advantage, and it is the duty of mankind to bring commonsense, legislation and science to bear upon nature. [An HON MEMBER: "And change the sun time."] No, of course I do not think you can change the sun time, but surely Society ought to organise itself and adapt itself to the best advantage, not of a section of the community but of the majority of the people. A point was raised as to the farmer's child. I have made inquiries into this point, and find that it is possible now, and would, I think, be possible if this Bill became law, for local education authorities in rural districts to alter the school hours in summer time so as to lessen the inconvenience to the children of farmers. That can be done now.

Can the hon. Gentleman give us an assurance that it can be done now?

It can be done now.

That exists now. I know of no reason that can be shown to alter that for the future.

Does the hon. Gentleman know of any case in which it has actually been done?

And done successfully?

No, I have no information of that sort, but it can be done.

Not successfully.

I have been asked to make a statement as to why this Bill enacting summer time permanently should not include a provision to prevent the extension of hours of employment in shops. The House will see right away that one could not introduce a subject like that in a Bill such as we are now discussing. In fact, the same argument. might be raised with regard to the hours of labour in every other occupation. The hours of employment in shops have been dealt with by law quite separately and distinctly from any other enactment. I am not very conversant with agricultural problems, but I am more able to deal with the point raised about shop hours than agriculture, and I want to say that when the times arrives, and the time may arrive soon, for the treatment of the hours of employment in shops in this country, that problem must be dealt with separately and distinctly from any Act of Parliament connected with summer time, and I do not see how it could very well be dealt with in a Bill of this kind.

One of the difficulties of the Government in connection with summer time is this: Our own Post Office, the Air Ministry, and the Admiralty have made representations to the Home Office because of the difference in the times between ourselves and Continental countries, particularly France, Belgium, and Holland, and more than one attempt, I understand, has been made to bring the times of these four countries into line. When the first attempt was made, there was a difference of opinion, I believe, in the French Parliament, and nothing satisfactory ensued on that occasion, but at the beginning of this year there was a conference between representatives of the four countries, which resulted in an agreement, and, as it happens, the provisions of that agreement tally with the provisions of the Measure now before us, and that is one of the strongest reasons why the Government feel that it is desirable that this Bill should have a Second Reading to-day. When an international agreement is desired, you have to give away some of the things that you like, and in bringing about this agreement between the four countries mentioned, each country has had to consider its own difficulties at home. We have some difficulties here which I have mentioned. We have the Scottish farmers, who do not see eye to eye with the English farmers.

I think it right to say that the English farming community are settled down to the acceptance—[HON. MEMBERS: "No "] Well, I think it may be taken now that the English farming community are settled down to some form of summer time. I know full well that they do not accept the provisions of this Bill—that is quite another thing—but the Scottish farmers, because, apparently, they live further North and the climatic conditions are different from those in England, do not accept even that which the English farmers accept. I thought it would be well if I pointed out that difference in passing. There has been one point missed in the discussion to-day. Nearly every hon. Member who has spoken has referred to the agreement with France and Belgium, and I wanted just to mention that the agreement included Holland as well. Having made this agreement with the other three countries the Government of the day are very anxious to honour that agreement. There were great difficulties in securing agreement, and I trust that, whatever opinions may be expressed here to-day on behalf of miners and agriculturists, the good of the whole community, and not only the good of our own community, but that these four nations having felt that the best thing on behalf of the majority of their populations is to enact summer time, we shall give this Bill to-day a Second Reading in order to bring about uniformity in this connection.

I gather from the speech to which we have just listened that the Under-Secretary for the Home Department was speaking on behalf of the Government, and that they wish to support the Second Reading of this Bill. I am sorry to hear that, because it seems to me a very unfortunate thing to upset a compromise which is working extremely well. The only argument that I could gather which the hon. Member made in support of the Second Reading of this Bill, with any substance in it, was when he referred to the international question and to our making our time agree with, the summer time of France and Belgium. But, after all, we begin our summer time very little after they do, and we resume the normal conditions very little sooner than they do, and, as far as I can hear, there is very little trouble in adapting ourselves to their particular time, and really, for our own advantage, I think we ought to continue as we are now with the compromise of two years ago.

As far as I can speak for the rural, agricultural representatives in this House, I think they are unanimously agreed against the Second Reading of this Bill, although we are fully aware that perhaps the majority of people in this country, being industrial and living in the towns, are in favour of beginning summer time earlier and leaving it off a little later. As regards making summer time a permanent Measure, I know very well that some hon. Members attach considerable importance to not making it permanent, but that does not appear to me to be the most important question involved in this Bill. It is pretty sure to remain a permanent Measure now that it has once been adopted, but the important thing from the rural districts and agricultural point of view is that it should not be started too soon and that we should leave it off soon enough. The farmers have been mentioned, but it really is not a farmers' question, but a general agricultural and rural question. The farmers do not want this Bill to pass, but it is not really so much on their behalf that we are speaking, as for, the general rural population. I understand that the late Minister of Education spoke in favour of the Second Reading of this Bill, but I am pretty well convinced that he could not have spoken for the views of the teachers in the rural districts. From all I can judge of the views held by those- teachers, they are all strongly against the Second Reading of this Bill.

The hon. Member treated this as if it were a scientific question, but it is not a particularly scientific process to put the clocks on one hour. He told us that agriculture and the rural districts could adapt themselves to the summer time and allow their children to go to school later, and that they could make their times coincide with the new conditions. They cannot do that. You cannot have a different time for attending school in a village from what they have in a neighbouring town. You cannot have different times for working on a farm, the cows being milked earlier and the rest of the men coming to the farm later. It only creates confusion, and it is no use falling back on that excuse. Farmers are sometimes accused of selfishness, but in this case, at any rate, they have by no means been selfish. I can assure the House that we look upon it that we have given a great concession in accepting the present compromise with the urban population.

Those engaged in the agricultural industry are against any interference with our old time. They do not want to change the time of the clock one moment later in the summer from what it is in the winter. They are quite ready to get up in the morning, and do their work without an Act of Parliament. We look upon this as giving the urban population a considerable concession, so much so that when we want something in return from the urban population, we shall ask them to bear in mind the concession we have given them. The differences between the town and the country are very often pointed out in this House, and, from the agricultural point of view, we often accuse the urban population of not understanding our difficulties. As regards this question from the agricultural point of view we quite understand that the towns are anxious to have a Daylight Saving Bill, commencing as early as possible, and continuing as late as possible. In rural parts of the country agriculturists do not want it, but they are willing to concede, for the benefit of the majority of towns, that there shall be summer time, beginning as late as possible and ending as early as possible. That compromise was arrived at after considerable discussion, and I think it is the greatest possible mistake for the Government to give their support to a proposal to upset it at the present time.

2.0 P.M.

When I came to the House to-day, I had no intention of taking part in the discussion of this subject, in which I am much interested, but we have heard so much of the views of the agricultural interest, that I really think it is time someone representing a great industrial constituency should attempt to put their views before the House. The agriculturists have been so vociferous to-day that they have done much to destroy the reputation of the British farmer for taciturnity and silent suffering. I think, if I may respectfully say so, we are in some danger of losing sight of the real point of this discussion. Many arguments have been addressed, on behalf of the agricultural interest, against the general question of summer time, and yet speaker after speaker, either before or after delivering himself or herself of arguments directed against the general proposition, has said that it is no use asking nowadays for the abolition of the provision of some summer time. The only point, really, as I understand, we have to discuss, is not as to whether summer time is good or bad, but whether we ought to co-ordinate our system with that of the Continental countries which are nearest to us, and whether we should get rid of a certain amount of uncertainty, and make permanent the provisions in that respect. I confess it appeals very strongly to me that on grounds of certainty and convenience we should adopt both the provisions of this Bill. It has been said by an hon. and learned Gentle man, who spoke on this side of the House a little earlier in the Debate, that there has been no demand for any change of the position effected, as a sort of compromise, some two years ago; but, to begin with, the compromise, surely, is necessarily not to be permanent, and, if it be found in the working of that compromise that it causes a good deal of dissatisfaction and inconvenience, the House must at the first opportunity, when it finds that state of things existing, endeavour to put the matter right. There has been an enormous number of resolutions passed by representative bodies in favour of the proposals in this Bill. I have in my hand a list, including no less than 152 municipal corporations, which have passed resolutions in favour of the two changes pro posed to be brought about by this Bill, 231 urban district councils, 45 rural district councils, 330 trade organisations, and—not uninteresting to notice—52 Scottish burghs. So that the House must not run away with the impression—

May I ask what is the meaning of the words "trade organisations"? Are they trade unions, or shopkeepers?

Can the hon. and learned Gentleman give the total number of organisations which have not passed resolutions?

Obviously, I cannot say what is the total number of organisations that have not passed such a resolution. I am merely dealing with those which have passed a resolution in favour. Nor am I able to say what is the number of trade unions, but I will assume, in the hon. Member's favour, that the figure includes other trade organisations beside trade unions.

The point is, does it include any trade union at all? If not, the whole case is useless.

With great respect, I do not agree. Because a particular organisation does not represent the views of the hon. Member, it does not follow that its views are worthless.

The hon. and learned Member does not know whom they represent.

At any rate, it is the fact that 330 trade organisations have passed a resolution in favour, and the hon. Member can assume, if he likes, against me, that there is not a single trade union organisation amongst them; still, it would not destroy the weight of opinion of 330 trade organisations which have thought this a desirable improvement in the state of the law.

Has the hon. and learned Member any information about the number of organisations and municipalities that have expressed themselves against the Bill?

I have already told the House that I am not attempting to deal with that. I do not know it may be more or less. That is not the point. The point is that so many organizations have passed resolutions in favour of the propositions in this Bill, and, surely, it is for those who want to suggest that municipal bodies and others have passed resolutions against, or have not committed themselves to any opinion—

I suggest the opposite.

It is so easy to suggest the opposite. If the hon. Member really believes, and has any information at all, that municipal bodies have passed resolutions against the Bill—

I do not think that. I put my question for a specific purpose. I am in favour of the Bill.

I am exceedingly sorry to have misunderstood the hon. Gentleman. I rather thought he was hostile. I am very much obliged to him. May I make the point in his behalf as well as my own, against those who criticise the figures which I am putting before the House? If they want to suggest that there are bodies of a similar kind of different views, it is surely up to hon. Members to produce the evidence, and not merely to say to me: "Where is your evidence about the other bodies?" That is their business, not mine. It is a very striking circumstance, I venture to think, in connection with this problem, these Resolutions being passed after two years' experience of a compromise of which they have talked so much. These very large and very important bodies in very considerable numbers have passed resolutions in favour of the proposition now before the House.

May I also call the attention of the House to the fact that the Irish Free State Summer Bill, which corresponds to the Measure now before this House, has passed its final stage. I hope that this House will not be behindhand in adopting what I am satisfied there is a very large body of public opinion in favour of. I am satisfied that the overwhelming body of public opinion is in favour of the propositions contained in this Bill. I am satisfied not only from my own experience, but from observation of the working out of the Summer Time Acts generally, that they conduce enormously to the health and happiness of the people. We may, I think, be satisfied that the House generally is in favour of summer time. What we are asking to do in this Bill is merely to co-ordinate our practice with the practice of Ireland and other countries near to us. I sincerely hope the House will give the Bill a Second Reading. If there be any special provisions which are necessary in the interests of agriculturists or any other body of people they can be dealt with in Committee.

I do not wish to inflict upon the House too much of the agricultural argument, but I have had it represented to me in a petition from 5,600 farmers, who urge me to vote against this Bill. The working in connection with farming and its organisation has been touched upon, and it raises a very important point that frequently escapes the observation of hon. Members. The question of dairy farming and of arable farming has been dealt with. The arable farmers can save themselves by starting work an hour later, but where you have mixed farming it is quite impossible to start your dairy work at one hour and your arable farming work at another. Farming with success on those lines is quite impossible. The remedy is not really in the hands of the farmers themselves, but in the hands of the legislature.

It has been suggested by the hon. Gentleman who represents the Government that the farmers can now settle down to some form of a summer time— that they have done so recently. They have settled down in the same way that a child settles down to the taking of rhubarb in the morning—because it is continually forced to take it! They have settled down, not because they like it, but because they cannot help it. There is one side which has eluded the attention of the Noble Lady the Member for Perth shire, and which also escaped the attention of the Committee which was set up in 1917. That is the point of view of the housewife. I refer to the ordinary housewife who has to do her own work. To her this Bill means that she has got to be up an hour earlier in order to commence her work. That may not seem much to the average person; but she does not get to bed any earlier herself, because, in fact, although putting on the time causes everybody to get up earlier, it does not force everybody to go to bed earlier. An hon. Member says it does That may be his experience, but my experience is that it does not. People stay up an hour longer. Most of us suppose we need a certain number of hours' sleep, and we do not want summer time to result in an hour's less sleep. It does so, for even when the children go to bed at their usual hour, they go in the daylight and cannot get to sleep because they are disturbed both by the light and by the noises outside.

Hence the working woman not only has her normal duties to attend to, but additional duties are put upon her, because her children cannot get to sleep at night. That is not the view held only by myself, but it represents the case from the working woman's standpoint. Only yesterday I received a letter from one of the housewives of whom I am speaking in a town in my constituency. She begged me to oppose this Bill on that very ground, that it meant an extra hour's work for every working housewife in the country. It does not matter to the people who can afford to lie in bed an extra hour in the morning, but to the people who have to do their own housework it matters considerably. I ask the House to bear that in mind when they are voting on this Bill.

The representative of the Government urged us to support the Bill on the ground of agreement with foreign countries. I object to this principle of making an agreement with foreign countries and then coming to us to support it. This is not the first time this has happened. Those of us in the last Parliament remember very well the question of Canadian cattle. It is surely desirable in cases like this, when the Government is going to make an agreement with a foreign country on a matter which affects us in our domestic concerns, that it should first take the sense of the House as to whether or not that agreement is in accordance with the sense of the House. That is an additional reason, to my mind, for voting against this Bill, that is to say in order to protest against agreements made in this way. I sincerely trust that the Bill will be defeated. I think our present arrangements are the maximum we should be expected to make in a country where agriculture, although despised is still an important industry. The hon. Gentleman who last spoke suggested that we were driving the agricultural argument to death, but many of us here represent the agricultural interest. We do not want to overstate the case, but, after all, agriculture is the most important industry in the country. It is right that representatives, who in the main represent urban areas, should be seised of the feeling in the country on this matter.

I wholeheartedly oppose the Second Reading of this Bill. I support the Amendment because, on behalf of the farmers, I believe the Bill is a breach of confidence with the agricultural interests and the mining interests made a few years ago. A breach of confidence by this House has a very far-reach- ing effect, and it is very disturbing in these times to find after a limited period that the matter is again in the melting pot; that, I believe, has been the subject of some amount of resentment. The point which has just been put to the House is that 5,600 farmers have asked their representative to vote against this Bill in the Division Lobby. I received a copy of that letter myself, and I visualise behind those 5,600 farmers at least 5,000 wives of agricultural workers and farmers, and at least 10,000 other agricultural workers. There must be at least 15,000 children in those homes, and the point which has been put is that the schools in rural areas are far more distant than the schools in urban areas. That means that 15,000 children in the aggregate have to walk a very long distance in the morning an hour earlier, and the agricultural workers have to go out to work an hour earlier. It is the two weeks earlier in the year and the two weeks later in the fall that create the bone of contention. Whilst we accept the existing arrangement as a reasonable compromise to the interests of town and rural life, I hope we shall get the town representatives to support this compromise to-day.

As far as the two weeks in April are concerned, everyone must realise how harassing it is to do the morning work of sowing the seed at an earlier hour. The same applies to those who have to go out an hour earlier to milk the cows. The men engaged in these two branches of agriculture will watch with interest this Debate, and they will resent very keenly the fact that they may have to go to work an hour earlier every morning. In many industries there are men who have to go long distances to work and travel between eight and 10 miles. Some of them have to walk. In the mining districts some of them have made arrangements with the colliery companies, and they have a motor omnibus, but most of them are exposed to the weather, and instead of 4.30 in the morning it will be 3.30 for them.

Then, again, the wives of these men will be compelled to rise an hour earlier and the whole arrangement is that these women will not get to bed any earlier. The children will continue their games as long as the light lasts, and will not go to bed at the usual time. It is all very well to say that parental control can bring them in, but with all the exercise of parental care it means that the children do not go to bed at the usual time, and that the long-drawn-out day has been added as a menace to the housewife, and will destroy many of the amenities of the home. In the interests of our agricultural community I think they should receive careful attention in this matter, and I am sure they would resent any breach of faith that would almost amount to a breach of confidence if we do not maintain the compact which we arrived at in the earlier days. The miners and agricultural workers, and those employed in industries, all desire to make this arrangement operate annually, but when you propose to make it operate two weeks earlier and two weeks in the fall, that is the breaking point. I enter a protest against the Second Reading of this Bill, and I shall vote against it.

I should like to emphasise certain points in favour of this Bill. My first point is in regard to permanence. Instead of the continual uncertainty of the time when summer time begins and ends it will be an advantage if in the future we have a regular defined day known in advance. I understand that even the hon. Member for Frome (Mr. F. Gould) who opposed this Measure does not object to its permanent feature. My second point is that having an extra fortnight at the beginning and another fortnight at the end are advantages in themselves. The hon. Member for Frome gave us two horrifying pictures, one of the little school children going to school in the very early hours of the dawn, and the other picture was that of the household kept up late into the night because the sun was still shining. As a matter of fact those two conditions do not apply to the first fortnight of April or the last fortnight of September. The time when the children go to school in the early dawn is in the winter.

Let the hon. Member picture children going to school last week or this week at the early hour of seven o'clock in the morning.

But, after all, these children have to go to school in the winter, and surely there is no special hardship in going to school in the first part of April and the last part of September, when it is much warmer weather than it is in the winter. It is said that by this change the household will be kept up late at night, but surely that remark would apply to the middle of June. It is true that at that period the sun does not set until about 10 o'clock, and the household may be kept up late in consequence. That may be an argument for having no summer time at all, but it is no argument against this Bill. For even with daylight saving, in September the sun sets at 7 o'clock, and it is dark at 8 o'clock in the evening, surely the hon. Member would not suggest that the household ought to be in bed at 8 o'clock. The importance of the last fortnight in September in particular is very great, and that is one of the great advantages of summer time, because when the clerk has come back from his holidays, and is in his office, he particularly wants that extra hour which he does not get in any other way. The extra fortnight in September is of more value than the hours in the earlier part of the summer when the days are longer.

My third point is the international one. When summer time was first introduced and talked about, it was said that the great disadvantage of adopting it would be that it would put us out of count with other countries where it was not adopted, and that was a very serious objection, but now the case is entirely the other way. The hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Hope Simpson) claimed that the international argument was simply that an agreement had been come to with foreign countries and we ought to honour that agreement. He seems, however, to have missed the main point, which is, that our neighbours have adopted this longer period of summer time, and that it is very inconvenient that our time should not be the same as our neighbours.

The fact that our Government have concurred with foreign Governments is an additional point, but it is not the main point. I think the objection of having a different time to that adopted by our neighbours is a real one and should weigh with us. If I may suggest one point where I prefer the Bill to be slightly different, it is in this respect. I think it is a sound proposal that summer time begins on the night of Saturday and Sunday, because people can get up later by the clock on Sunday morning. I think summer time should end by the extra hour being given on the Sunday night. But if that be impossible because it would fail to fall in with the international agreement, we must leave it as it is. On those three grounds, which I wish to emphasise, the Bill has my support.

I speak on this matter as an agriculturist. I am aware that a little while ago our attitude towards this question was one in which we did not enter into the considerations of other parts of the country, but we have submitted to the interests of those other parts of the country and have agreed against our own interests to the compromise that was effected under the present Act governing summer time. This Bill proposes to upset that agreement and arrangement, and it is for that reason that I rise to oppose it. Last week, I had the courage to speak upon a matter about which I admitted that I practically knew nothing. But this afternoon I am going to revert to my previous attitude, and am going to speak upon a matter about which I do know something. I submit that I do know something about summer time so far as the agricultural industry is concerned. Whenever a parent gives advice to his children, his advice to those going out into the world is to make hay while the sun shines. That advice may be literally adapted to agriculture. We want to make hay while the sun shines. You cannot in agriculture make hay unless the sun does shine. The hon. Member for South Cardiff (Mr. A. Henderson, junr.) said that this Bill was in the interests of the vast majority of the community. I submit that the reason this Bill is necessary is that there has been a distinct degeneration in the habits of the mass of our people. Men and women for years have progressively succumbed to the temptations of the large towns, the theatres and cinemas, and, succumbing to those temptations, have got into the habit of keeping late hours at night.

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but I feel that I must say something. I did not intend to speak for the theatrical profession, but this Bill is going to do a great deal of harm to the theatres and the people in the theatrical profession. I represent a mining, agricultural, and industrial constituency, but, after the hon. Member's remark, I feel that I must speak on behalf of those of the theatrical profession to whom this Bill is going to do a great deal of harm, because people will not go to the theatres, and it will throw many persons out of employment.

The point that I was making was that the theatres and cinemas have produced a habit in the people of this country of keeping late hours. They have not gone to bed so early as they did previously, and the result has been that they have been unable to get up as early in the morning as they otherwise would. It is only some of the people of the country who have been induced to keep these late hours. There are still some wise men. Those of us who live in the country districts, lovers of the open air life, obedient to the natural laws, have admitted the natural law that the sun should rule the day, and we have kept to the natural time to get up and the natural time to go to bed.

This House has recognised, and recognises now, that there is this sad degeneration among town dwellers, and it has recognised that it is necessary in the interests of the health of those town dwellers that something should be done to get them up early in the morning, and send them to bed a little earlier at night. The House has also recognised that it would be futile to go and preach to these town dwellers that they should for the sake of their own good and health get up early in the morning. It has recognised that it cannot induce these town dwellers to get up early in the morning. What has it had to do? It has had to deceive them and gull them in order to get them up in the morning by putting the clock on one hour, so that these town dwellers still think that they are going to bed at twelve when actually they go to bed at eleven. This would be all to the good except for those wise men of the country who have kept to reasonable hours at all times and who are now made to keep unreasonable hours. We are the early birds who catch the worm, but now you are endeavouring to get us up at a time before the worm himself is about.

On behalf of agriculture, I do ask hon. Members to look at the matter from this point of view. We have had this morning an illustration of the weather in the second week in April, and I ask hon. Members to think what it is like to come out at four o'clock to go to work on the land on a morning like this. I want the House to realise the agricultural operation of milking a cow on a morning like this, before the cow itself is awake. I want to put seriously to the House the fact that, during the past week, there have been such frosts that it has been impossible to plant potatoes at the ordinary time in the morning, and that if, under this Bill, that hour had been an hour earlier, then two or three further hours would have been wasted by agricultural labour in this country. The hon. Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) referred to the Report of a Departmental Committee which was set up in 1917, and said that agricultural conditions had been under review by that Committee, and that the agriculturists had come to some arrangement with regard to harvesters, so that the sun should rule the hours in agriculture during harvest time. Although, however, the sun will rule the hours during which the harvesters are at work, it is summer time that will rule the shops and the public houses, and when the men in the fields have done their field work by sun time, they will be unable to buy goods in the shop or get a glass of beer from the public house when they go home. For these reasons I support the Amendment. We agriculturists, accepted the present agreement more or less tacitly, but we shall object, and object strongly, to any extension of the present hours of summer time. In the interests of agriculture, in the interests of rural England, in the interests of the children of rural England, I appeal to Members of this House to support the Amendment, which refuses any extension of summer time.

From a point of view totally different from that which has been expressed by the hon. Member who has just sat down, I rise to say that I shall vote for the Amendment. A few years ago, namely, in 1921, the Board of Education presented a Memorandum, to which reference has been made here to-day, on the effect of the Summer Time Act on the health of school children, and it is rather from that point of view that I desire to call the attention of the House to the position, so far as the opinion of a large industrial centre is concerned. It is quite true that in that Memorandum there is a large preponderence of opinion, so far as school children are concerned, in favour of summer time, but if, as regards urban areas, we could distinguish those parts of the urban areas which really are more or less of a rural character, or at all events in which the industrial and economic conditions are totally different from what they are in other parts, I think there would be a great difference in the figures presented in the Memorandum in question. I want specially to refer to the Sheffield figures which were collected at the time that Memorandum was presented. An inquiry was addressed to 281 head teachers as to the effect of the Summer Time Act. Of these, 116 intimated that no injurious effects had been noticed on the health, mental alertness, power of sustained effort, and the like, of the children attending their schools, and in the course of their observations in support of that intimation they expressed the view that

"An extra hour in the open air is beneficial to health.

"An extra hour in the open air is preferable to an hour's sleep in. an overcrowded, ill-ventilated bedroom.

"Visits to the parks and walks into the country are made possible in the evening."

While that is true, more particularly, as far as the less densely populated parts of the city are concerned, I do not think it is true in regard to the more densely populated portions. On the other hand, 154 head teachers indicated that, in their opinion, the Act had a harmful effect on the health, mental alertness, and so forth, of the children in their schools, but in 36 of these 154 cases the opinion was expressed that the ill effects were only slight. The reasons which brought them to their conclusions are expressed as follows:

"Children lose much rest, and often play in the streets until dark.

"They arrive late at school in the mornings, after hurried breakfast, and in some cases without breakfast.

"There is much drowsiness during the first hour in the morning.

"Towards three o'clock in the afternoon the children are tired.

"If children are put to bed earlier they cannot sleep, owing to the light and the street noises.

"Attendance suffers on account of late rising.

"Children in the lower standards are listless and heavy.

"The afternoon school session is brought within the hottest hours of the day."

I venture to suggest that these are reasons to which very serious attention ought to be given, in view of the whole question of the health of the children. Therefore, I suggest that the Amendment should be supported, and that, before we make what is really a somewhat drastic change in the way of lengthening the hours of summer time, there ought to be some further inquiry into the whole subject before the House can come to a right conclusion.

I should like, in the first place, to say that I hope, before this Debate come to an end, we shall have the views of the Minister of Agriculture or of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry on this very important subject. They must know, even better than we know, the intolerable nuisance and loss which summer time causes in various ways to the British farmer and smallholder. There is a loss, of course, in the hay season, when the men have to stand idle for many hours; there is the wretchedness in the autumnal mornings of going out, while it is pitch-dark, into the fields and finding the cows; and there is the unpleasantness, not only for the farmer, but also for his dependants and his men, of getting up at a very unearthly hour. I had not the opportunity, unfortunately, of hearing the speech of my hon. Friend who moved the Bill, because I had to go across to a meeting over the way, and went across in a heavy snowstorm; but I had the privilege of hearing the Seconder, and the only regret I had when he was speaking was that the Home Secretary was not present to hear his son speak, because, although I disagreed entirely with what he said, if I may use a somewhat hackneyed phrase, it was a speech which would have gladdened any father's heart. I do not think the hon. Member for Cardiff is quite on his firmest ground when he is speaking about cows. I did not quite know what he meant. In these days we seem always to be making gestures, and the hon. Member, as far as I could make out, was making a gesture to the cows. After all, I suppose the ordinary cow is the most conservative thing living to-day. I think the ordinary cow would almost put Lord Banbury to shame. Perhaps I have put the case too high, but, at any rate, the cow hates change and, as we have always been told, change is not at all good for cows. After all, the position in which we find ourselves is this. This arrangement which we have to-day is a compromise made only two years ago. My agricultural constituents have often approached me on the matter, and I have always told them I thought summer time had come to stay, that they must act, as they have acted, in an unselfish way, but that I was convinced, a compromise having been honourably effected, that compromise would be kept to and people would oppose strongly any extension which might be detrimental to them. I am exceedingly sorry a Bill is now proposed in which the compromise is asked to be broken at a time when farmers and smallholders are in very dire straits and are having a very hard time indeed.

I rise to support the Second Reading. In this matter I have a divided allegiance. First of all, in conjunction with my right hon. Friend, as representing some 20,000 graduates of various universities, I think we may say of them, as far as I have been able to discover, that they are very largely in favour of the Bill. If I may assume that the normal graduate is a student, I would say that the normal student has to endure a bi-diurnal tragedy —the tragedy of going to bed at night and the tragedy of getting up in the morning. He hates both those operations. He never goes to bed until he is too tired to sit up any longer, and he never gets up until hunger or business compels him. It takes an Act of Parliament to get him up an hour earlier in the morning, and I should say the ordinary student will be grateful to this House for any assistance it gives him in overcoming his natural lack of momentum. As far as students are concerned, certainly this change to so-called summer time is an advantage. It gives them more daylight, it is conducive to their health, and it is advantageous in every way. On the other hand, I am myself a farmer—in a email way indeed, but still a farmer—and I have cows, and I can confirm from personal experience the strongly conservative character of the cow. All of us farmers find that this summer time is by no means enacted to our advantage or in our favour. We have to endure it, but as long as legislation is carried by a House of Parliament which represents to so overwhelming an extent the opinions and the interests of cities, just so long will agriculture and country-life in general have to take a second place. We cannot legislate for the country as a whole mainly in the interest of farmers. We have to consider the broader interests of the entire population, and on which side that interest lies in this case scarcely admits of much difference of opinion. The country has to suffer in all kinds of ways from having its interests defined and controlled by the towns. We have in the country a town system of education, and we shall have town time. In every kind of way the country always has to suffer to some extent in the interest of the town. On the other hand, the development of the towns does react upon the prosperity of the country, and one thing must be taken with another.

It has always been the case, especially in Great Britain, that our wonderfully adjustable people adjust themselves to almost anything. Our trade adjusts itself to Free Trade or to Protection. We adjust ourselves to all kinds of inspection and all kinds of interference Ly bureaucracies are what not. We adjust ourselves to everything, and I have no doubt, whatever decision the House comes to, whatever kind of time it introduces, we shall adjust ourselves to it. Let us only have something definite, something we can look forward to from year to year, something that we can learn how to deal with. No one has referred— I think it is not remarkable they should not have done so—to the fact that the sun does not even now in any way follow the dictates of the clock. At one time of the year the clock is a quarter of an hour in advance of the sun and at another time of the year the clock is a quarter of an hour behind the sun and no one knows the difference. As a matter of fact there has been for centuries this difference of a half-hour between the extreme in one direction and the extreme in the other in the relations of the clock to the sun. No one protests against it because we are so thoroughly accustomed to it that we do not know it happens, and it may well be, in years to come when our adjustment to so-called summer time has been confirmed, that the matter will pass almost unnoticed. It is certain that the intelligence of Britons has this extraordinary power of adjustment. I make no doubt the farmer in future will adjust himself to whatever time this House likes to enact. In any case the advantages on the side of the vast majority of the population are so great that I have no difficulty in supporting the Second Reading of the Bill.

The Scottish aspect of this question from the general point of view has been put so well by Members representing the northern portion of Great Britain that I do not wish to deal with it, but I should like, as a practical agriculturist, to venture one or two remarks with regard to the effect of summer time on the oldest and most basic industry in the country. It is all Very well for people engaged in other industries to say the agriculturist should accommodate himself to summer time, but they cannot regulate the weather any more than this House can, and undoubtedly summer time has inflicted a very serious financial loss on the whole agricultural community. If we take the point of view of overtime, nearly every other industry paying overtime is, in the ordinary way, deriving a certain amount of benefit from that extra remuneration paid to the workers; but paying overtime owing to the operation of summer time is expending money to cut the losses summer time has inflicted on the agricultural community. The harvest, whether it be the hay or the corn harvest, is deteriorating all the time. We just pay overtime to our workers to alleviate our losses as far as possible. There is also the point of view of the agricultural labourer, and more especially the point of view of the wife of the agricultural labourer. There is no section of the community so well deserving of sympathetic public support as are the wives of agricultural labourers. They have not in their homes the facilities of those who live in an urban district. They have no artificial light, and in very few cases have they gravitation water. Their household duties are very exacting; and we can truly say that while of extra labour to the wife of the agricultural worker. There is a clashing of arrangements for preparing the meals for her husband and getting her, in many cases, large and numerous family ready for school. Although we as agriculturists, and I am speaking as an agriculturists, should try to act up to the advice of the Prime Minister to bring the rural and urban communities into closer touch, this must be accompanied through the urban communities trying to realise the great handicap and the great difficulties which the agricultural industry labours under. Agriculture has exceptional difficulties owing to climatic conditions, and in my opinion if we agriculturists are, to use a phrase that is being made historic in this House, to "make a gesture" towards our urban brethren, it cannot be successful unless those in the city fully realise the many difficulties with which we have to contend. The agricultural community as a whole is willing to accept a limitation of the duration of summer time, a limitation to the months of May, June, July and August; but it certainly deprecates the proposal that summer time should be extended to the limits in this Bill. It would mean a very serious handicap indeed in the spring, in seed-time, especially in such seasons as we have had during the last few years, when we have had serious difficulties to contend with in getting our seed sown. And when we come to the harvest and the potato-lifting we find the operation of summer time is going to handicap us sorely indeed. I would like to see a compromise arrived at with regard to the duration of summer time.

3.0 P.M.

I have had a lot of representations, as no doubt other Members have, in regard to the permanency of summer time—as also on the duration of summer time— and it does appear to me the time has not yet arrived for making this a permanent Measure. Public opinion has not yet crystallised in regard to the period it wishes to see embraced by summer time, and it is only by a certain amount of variation, and, if I may say so, a certain amount of experiment, that we can find out what is actually desired. I see no reason why the present temporary Measure should not be continued from year to year for two or three years, till we find out the views of the majority of the people in this country—the clear and distinct majority I realise that the agricultural community, the mining community and the Actors' Association are, after all, only a minority of the population, and that we must accept the opinion of the majority of the people; but though we are most of us convinced the great majority of people are in favour of some measure of summer time, I claim we have no sufficient grounds for stating that people are in favour of this particular Measure. Until such time as the people, after due consideration, have arrived at some unanimity as regards the duration of summer time, this House would be well advised to continue the present temporary Measure from year to year, and not inflict on the nation, and on the basic industry of the nation, the industry that really produces the food of the nation, a very grave handicap, a handicap that is increasing, though not perhaps to a large extent, the cost of production of home-produced food. That is a thing everyone must deplore at the present moment. We want to get more food produced in this land, and as cheaply as possible, and I am convinced that this House, more especially than any Parliament of recent years, does wish to relieve the handicap on agricultural industry, and to reduce the cost of home-produced food and to extend its production. Therefore, those who represent urban communities should have some consideration for this great industry, which is the backbone industry of the country, and should agree to continue the present temporary arrangements until such time as we have a clear expression from the people that they really desire a permanent measure of summer time, and have some clear and decided opinion as to the duration of that period.

A large number of speeches from interests1 which are admirably represented in this House have been heard to-day, ranging from agriculture to the mining industries and the theatres. I rise to say a word on behalf of an interest which is not, at any rate, directly represented in this House, and that is the interest of the children and the young people. On their behalf I wish to say a word in favour of this Bill. We have been told about the evil effects of summer time upon children, but I think my right hon. Friend the Member for the Combined Universities (Mr. Fisher) dis- posed of much of the argument as to the health of the children. [An HON. MEMBER: "How many children has he?"] I have not any information as to the right hon. Gentleman's family, but I am speaking as a father and a grandfather, and I say that we have enjoyed great blessings even from the limited measure of summer time which has been in operation.

In so far as there are any evil effects, as was pointed out by the Noble Lady the Member for West Perthshire (Duchess of Atholl), they are due to effects that do not apply to the present Bill. It may be true, in the moving words quoted from Robert Louis Stevenson, that the unfortunate child has to go to bed by day, but that is provided for in the principal Act, and this is only an attempt to extend summer time during a period when we are actually giving a little more daylight and a little better chance of fresh air, not only to children, but to all the young people, to whom it is of the utmost value.

I am told of the evil effects that may be seen as a result of summer time, but I would point out that if one goes into any park or public playground after office and school hours, one can see the good effects which the rising generation, for whom this House has greater responsibility than for any other section of the community, derive from summer time. I do not wish to minimise the difficulties in regard to special industries. One is sorry for them, but most of the complaints have come from the North, from Scotland. It is an act of God that has given Scotland summer time, and it is a little unfair that our brother Scots should seek to deprive us of the blessings that God has poured upon their heads.

In some industries there will be inconvenience, particularly in agriculture, and in the theatres. But some of us remember a somewhat famous speech which was made a few years ago from the front Government Bench, which laid down the principle that it is the privilege of minorities to suffer. This Bill, for which I plead, is brought forward on the principle of the 'greatest good to the greatest number. It will serve to keep out in the open fresh air, and to keep out of the less healthy theatres and the much less healthy public-house, our young people, for an additional four weeks in the year. If summer time is a good thing, let us have a little bit more rather than a little bit less of it. Therefore, I beg the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

I cannot follow with the same authority the hon. grandfather who has just sat down in regard to the effects of summer time upon children. He said that it was the privilege of minorities to suffer. I would like to remind him that it is not the privilege of majorities to inflict hardships. The hon. Member for West Leicester (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) said that no one could claim that 9 o'clock in the morning in the first two weeks of April could be considered to be winter time. If he had been with me this morning and had come up from the Midlands, he would have seen large tracts of country, not literally but actually covered with snow, and he might have altered his opinion. He would have seen that agricultural operations are absolutely suspended as far as the cultivation of land is concerned.

There is no doubt that the experience we have had during the last few weeks has conclusively proved that it would be a great disadvantage not only to agriculture but to the children, for whom the hon. Member was speaking, if they are expected at an earlier hour than at the present time to tramp in some cases a far longer distance than the two miles permitted to attend school, and it is not only the very young child, but we in the rural areas have to live under this disadvantage of not being in such close proximity to the secondary school and the boys and girls of a somewhat older age, who have perhaps to go by train to get to some reasonable secondary school to continue their education, if they had to get up an hour earlier to catch a train would also suffer the hardship which is suffered by the children. An hon. Member below the Gangway accused agriculturists of being vociferous. I admit that on this occasion with great pleasure, because we believe that we are right and there is no harm in being vociferous if we know we are right. We have been generous in this matter, we have already given away a great deal in the interests of the community, and thereby suffered a great deal of difficulty, loss and inconvenience which has been caused, not to the farmer, but to agriculturists as a whole, and very largely to the agricultural worker.

Two reports have been referred to in this Debate. I shall not refer to the first, but in the Bill itself reference is made to a conference which was held, I believe, in Paris between France, Belgium and Great Britain, and the hon. Member who spoke for the Government referred also to that Report. I would like to know who sat on that Committee and who represented agriculture. I am informed—and I believe it to be correct —that the conference dealt almost exclusively with the question of administration, and not with the practical question itself. Consequently I do not think that this report should be given as an answer to our case, as some hon. Members wish to give it, because it is the practical side of the question which we ought to be considering to-day. I protest strongly, not against summer time, but against the extension of the period which is to be termed summer time, because no Act of Parliament can make the first two weeks of April summer time. Up to now it has been generally considered that the industrial interests and the rural interests have been opposed to each other with regard to this question. I am glad to observe, from speeches which were delivered to-day, a feeling on the part of many who represent primarily industrial interests against any further extension of time under this Bill. But though, to my mind, it may be correct, collectively, that those are the two opposing interests, I would put the personal interests down as being recreation, health and business. I do not put them in that order of importance. In that respect, hon. Members can put them in any order they like.

On the ground of recreation, who is it who is asking that the period of summer time should commence at an earlier date? I do not know of anybody who wishes to start tennis—I believe that that is one of the great objects of the extension—during the first two weeks of April. I think that the question of recreation ought not, at least in regard to the two weeks' extention at the commencement of the period, to receive any great consideration. The question of health is a different one because health is the greatest asset to either an individual or a nation. The question of health should be very seriously and comprehensively considered. I do not think that the addition of two weeks to summer time in April will add considerably to the health of the population; in fact the balance of opinion is on the other side. A great deal has been said with regard to children. It is a very questionable point whether the children receive any advantage whatever, from the health standpoint, from an extension of summer time. Statistics have been quoted. My opinion of statistics is that they often vary in accordance with the ideas and desires of those people who prepare them. Whatever educationists may say with regard to children, the parents generally say that one hour more of sleep would do the very young child more good than one hour more of recreation in daylight.

There is the question of the agricultural worker. The effect of summer time upon him has certainly not been to his advantage. The extension of summer time is a very different proposition to the man who starts work at six o'clock, five o'clock or earlier in the morning, from what it is to the man who strolls to his work at nine or 10 o'clock. It is the earlier worker who suffers most by this extension. The agricultural worker is bound to be in his place early in the morning. It is all very well to say that he can adapt himself for the time. Unfortunately agriculturists have to do that. Workers on dairy farms and mixed farms have to accommodate themselves to the time tables of the railway companies. There is a demand in the town for milk to be delivered as fresh as possible. I admit that it is very seldom that those who live a considerable distance from the country receive the morning's milk at the morning delivery; it is often delivered in the afternoon. None the less, the time table of the railway company is the one to which the farmer has to work. The farmer's men have to be at work at most inconvenient times in order to have the cows milked and that milk delivered at the railway station in time for delivery in the town. That is not for the benefit of the farmer or the farm worker, but for the benefit of the general community. When seasonal work has to be performed, the agricultural worker has to stay late at his work in order to perform certain essential duties. That means a longer working day for him. The business side of the question ought to receive consideration as well as pleasure in these days. Many years ago a certain king found it futile to try to rule the tides. The hon. Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) will find it quite as difficult to rule time. Whatever the Bill may propose, the effect will certainly not be to rule time. Time rules the seasons. The first lesson that the agriculturist has to learn is that the seasons rule agricultural operations. I am not going to oppose the continuance of the Summer Time Act, because, as I say, we in agriculture have made concessions in the general interest and for the good of the community in general, but I strongly oppose this Bill as it stands, and support the Amendment. The agreement which has been arranged should be continued, and no further extension of time should be allowed. It has also been suggested that the question raised in the Bill is not as to whether summer time is good or bad, but that it is a question of the co-ordination of time between the various countries. There is another principle. The co-ordination must be practicable, and we cannot make the seasons in France the same as they are here; neither can we make the seasons here the same as they are in Scotland. If the absurd theory that we could do so was carried to extremes, then an Amendment should be moved to this Bill to make the time suitable for Australia also. I oppose the Second Reading of the Bill.

I will not take up much time because it would appear that practically every speaker taking part in this Debate is opposed to the proposal of the Bill, and it would be more proper if some supporters of the Bill were to get up, and attempt to answer the very strong case put forward on behalf of agriculture. There is something screamingly funny in a House which itself refuses to begin operations at a decent hour in the morning, but begins at a quarter to three in the afternoon—[HON. MEMBERS: "What about Committees?"] I am speaking of the work of this House, and I repeat there is something funny in the Members of a House which begins business at a quarter to three in the afternoon and goes on most nights until half past eleven o'clock and sometimes till one or two in the morning, sitting here solemnly, without a smile on their faces, discussing summer time for the agricultural industry An hon. Member sitting near me reminds me that it is not regarded as an industry by some hon. Members. It is perhaps looked upon as a pastime by them, but the fact remains that the two prime industries in this country are agriculture and coal mining. It may be that interests concerned in the manufacture of chocolate mice or barbed wire and occupations and industries of that kind, find an extension of summer time such as is proposed by the hon. Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) of some advantage, but I think it has been clearly proved that our two prime industries, agriculture and coal mining, have nothing to gain, but in some respects have something to lose, by the proposal. I represent a very large agricultural constituency. I heard an hon. Member declare the other night that he represented the most romantic part of Scotland. Well, I represent the "bonny banks of Loch Lomond" Anyone who has been there in the summer time will know that in the morning the mist lies in the valleys so long that it is impossible for agricultural workers to get about their business at all, and if you extend the period in which this difficulty operates you are doing nothing whatever to benefit agriculture, and you are certainly hampering agriculture to some considerable extent.

I was rather interested to hear one hon. Member speak in support of the Bill as being designed to help students at our universities. My recollection is that at the early morning classes that we used to have they took subjects upon which they could not teach us unless they got us in a semi-comatose condition. They used to give us moral philosophy at eight o'clock; they could not teach moral philosophy at any later or more sane hour of the day. But whatever advantages an extension of summer time might have for some students at some universities, or for some workers in Woolwich and other parts of London, it certainly has no advantage for agriculture and for coal mining. In coal mining there are three shifts. There is the six o'clock in the morning to two o'clock in the afternoon shift, in which a man has to be at his work and go down the pit at six in the morning. In many cases he has an hour's walk to do to get to his pit, which means that he leaves his home at five in the morning, and his wife has to be up to cook his food at about a quarter past four to get her husband out at five o'clock. If there is more than one collier in the house, as there frequently is, and he is in another shift, perhaps the two o'clock to ten o'clock shift, the collier's wife is still cooking food and busily engaged in her home during that period; and if she has still another worker in the house, on another shift—and that is also frequently the case—from 10 at night to six in the morning, it simply means that the collier's wife in many thousands of instances is engaged for the whole 24 hours, more or less, per day.

Not only is it rather humorous that this House should be discussing summer time starting earlier in the morning, but it is rather humorous that on the day on which we are discussing it we should have a snowstorm. I think it was Browning who wrote—

I only rise to make one point. Two of my hon. Friends on this bench have spoken against the Bill, and I think I am nearly always in complete agreement with them; but, on this question, I hope I may say a word in favour of the Second Reading of the Bill. The only point I wish to make is that I do not necessarily consider that the Bill as printed is the Bill that will emerge in its final form from Committee. I think it is quite likely that there may be some dates and some lines in this Bill which will be altered in Committee, and I think it is during the Committee stage that we have to see that no injusice is done to any particular industry or another. But I do not see why we should not give this Bill a Second Reading to-day. As a matter of fact, it has been taken for granted that this Bill is in order to enable some international arrangement to be made, and I quite agree it would be a great advantage if we could have the same kind of system as they have got in France, Holland and Belgium. But, after all, our first consideration is what is best for our own community, and if it be better for our own community that we should knock out the two extra weeks at each end of the six months' period in this Bill, that can be done in Committee.

It seems to me that, really, the point we have to consider in this Bill is whether we want a permanent arrangement, or a temporary arrangement, and that is why I propose to vote for the Second Reading, because I think it is far better to have some kind of permament system, instead of every year having it in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. Everybody in this House knows that you never can get a decision on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill in regard to the various Bills put in. You have a very perfunctory discussion, and you are never able to discuss the merits of the various Measures within the purview of the Bill. I do hope we give this Bill a Second Reading, and, during the Committee stage, look very carefully into it, and see whether any Amendments are necessary. I quite agree that Amendments may be necessary, but I do not think that is any reason for refusing the Second Reading to-day.

My colleague at the Home Office spoke during an earlier part of the Debate, but to a very thin House, and, perhaps, it is just as well, before we proceed to a Division, even at the risk of repeating some of the things he said, that I should restate the position which the Government take up with regard to this Bill. There was a Committee appointed in 1917 to consider this question of summer time. That was the first year after summer time had been tried. The Committee came to a unanimous finding. Two of its recommendations were that summer time in this country should be made a permanent institution, and, secondly, that an effort should be made to try to get uniformity of date with those Continental countries that were applying the principle of summer time. A Conference was held, I think in 1922, between representatives of France, Belgium and our own country. They came to an agreement pretty much on the lines contained in the Bill intro- duced by the hon. Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood). But for the opposition which sprang up amongst the aggrarian population in France I hold the opinion that the agreement would have been ratified not only in France and Belgium, but in this country.

Hon. Members can, therefore, see that this question of seeking an international agreement first of all arose in our own Committee, which recommended its unanimously, and, secondly, that under the previous Government the first Conference was held. I regret the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Lamb) is not for the moment in his place. A few moments ago he seemed to criticise the composition of the Conference because there was no representative of agriculture on it; but the Conference was held merely to try to get uniformity, and not to discuss the principle of summer time. When the difficulty arose in France the French Government for the time being dropped the entire question, but because they had no summer time law, there was such an agitation raised they had hurriedly to pass through another Measure setting up a modified summer time. They then made the suggestion to a previous Government that another effort should be made to try to get uniformity of arrangement. Some delay took place. The blame did not rest with our predecessors here. I think the blame rested very largely with the French Government.

The second International Conference did not take place until 10th March. An agreement was reached, and as my hon. colleague stated, a little earlier, the terms of the agreement are set out in the Clauses of the Bill now before us. That Bill seeks to accomplish two things. It seeks to establish the principle of permanency and the position of uniformity. As I have already shown, we supported the idea as a result of the unanimous recommendation of the Committee appointed in 1917. We started the idea of getting these two points established in law so far as summer time is concerned. The Government take up this attitude: they have to some extent inherited a position; first, the request came from the French Government, and, secondly, as in both Conferences they have reached agreement, it seems to us it is most desirable that the House to-day should give a Second Reading to this Bill. As the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. G. Locker-Lampson) said a moment or two ago, if there are details to be altered the place to alter them is in Committee. Let me say one word more. Those who have listened to the Debate must have been impressed with this idea, that many of the arguments that have been used strike at the entire principle of summer time. The only solid argument that has been used is the argument as to the detrimental effect that summer time, whether long or short, may have upon the agricultural industry. I am quite sure that all of us must be anxious to avoid doing anything which is going to be seriously prejudicial to our greatest industry. I think I voted for the Bill of the late Mr. Pearce in 1908, and I think I have been a consistent supporter of summer-time reform ever since. I have represented a mining constituency and an agricultural constituency, and never once was this question raised as one of controversy between my constituents and myself. That, however, does not debar me from having some sympathy with the arguments advanced by the agricultural industry.

As I pointed out to a deputation which was introduced to me a few weeks ago, we have this difficulty. It appears that the English agriculturists have somehow or other made up their minds that there must be some form of summer time. They have appealed to the Board of Agriculture and to the Home Office, requesting that the summer time period should be restricted to the months of May, June, July and August. That request was made by one section of agriculture, I think it was the Farmers' Union. Then the Council of Agriculture made representations, and I do not know which of those bodies is the greatest authority, but, speaking for the industry, they say that if summer time is to be continued as it now exists, they would prefer that it be begun in May and continued until the end of October.

Surely the answer to what the right hon. Gentleman has just said is that all agriculturists would like summer time for as short a period as possible.

I do not exactly know what is the meaning of that interruption, but I have here a resolution passed by the Council of Agriculture, and perhaps my hon. Friend knows more than I do as to what authority they have to speak on this subject. They have passed the following resolution, in which they emphatically declared at a meeting of the Council of Agriculture for England in December last:

It was suggested by one speaker that there has been a breach of the agreement, and it was suggested by another speaker that we were being dragged at the heels of other countries. Neither of these statements is correct. I have shown that as long ago as 1922, before this Government came into office and before the hon. Member thought of introducing such a Bill, there was an International Conference. The second Conference has been held, because, as my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary pointed out a little earlier, we have been appealed to—the Home Office has been appealed to—not only by France and by Belgium but by the Post Office, the Ministry of Air, and the railway companies, who say that if you have this divergence in the dates as between one country and another it en- tirely upsets all the cross channel traffic, and that has its repercussion upon the whole of our railway system. It seems to me therefore that we should be well advised if we gave this Bill a Second Reading. I will undertake, on behalf of the Government and in conjunction with my hon. Friend in charge of the Bill, that some of the points referred to by my hon. Friend opposite shall be taken into consideration during the Committee stage, because, after all, we want, as I have already said, to try to get the best Measure possible and the fullest degree of uniformity that can be practicably worked.

I wish to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) upon having introduced this Bill, because it is my humble opinion that no legislation passed during recent years has done so much to increase the enjoyment and pleasure of the great masses of the people as has this principle of summer time. As the Home Secretary said a short time ago, the attacks to which we have listened to-day have not been so much upon the Bill as upon the whole principle of summer time. Of course, everybody agrees that there are two sides to every question, and undoubtedly there are two sides to this question. I have heard a somewhat selfish employer of labour complain of his men being overtired from playing football and other games and being unable to give such good work the following morning. I have heard the manager of a large business say that it is difficult to get the young women he employs to work as early in the morning, because they are tired from playing tennis overnight. I cannot help feeling that the benefits to the health of these people more than outweigh any of the disadvantages that may accrue. An hon. Gentleman who represents a Scottish constituency, speaking a short time ago —I am sorry to see he is not in his place at the moment—attacked this Measure and the whole principle of summer time, and challenged us to say why we wanted it. I will say why in a very few words. We in the South want to enjoy the same advantages that are enjoyed by those fortunate people who happen to live on the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond. If we get this Measure, we in the South and Midlands will have approximately the same time for healthy recreation as they would have if summer time were ignored and things were left as they are.

The great obstacle with which we are confronted is, undoubtedly, the agricultural interest. After all, however, are the disadvantages which that interest will experience as great as the agriculturists in this House and elsewhere endeavour to make us believe? What is the alternative? What is the farmer to do? He has, so far as the internal economy of his farm is concerned, two courses of action open to him. He can either ignore summer time altogether, or he can come to an agreement with the men he employs with regard to overtime. That is as far as the internal economy of his farm is concerned. The other difficulty that has been mentioned to-day is with regard to train services to his local station, and the milk that he purveys and supplies to industrial towns in the neighbourhood. For some time the great argument advanced was that it was impossible to get the milking done, under summer time, in time to get the milk into the industrial towns by breakfast time; but practically everyone knows now that it is not the morning's milking that people get in those towns at breakfast time, but the milking of the evening before. Therefore, there is no great necessity for the farmer to catch that particular early train in the morning. I have no intention of standing between the House and the Division, but I do wish to express the hope that the House will see its way to giving a Second Reading to this Measure, because I feel that definitely to fix the period of summer time, whatever opinions we may have with regard to the Measure itself, will go far to obviate difficulty and uncertainty in the future, and to make the Act more effective than it is at present.

I rise only for a moment to support the Second Reading of this Measure. It is an amazing thing to me that this House, at any rate, should seriously listen to some of the arguments that have been put forward, especially when we remember that this Bill is only extending summer time for just a very short period. I should like any agricultural representative in this House to tell me seriously what evil effect this Measure will have owing to the extension of the period so that it commences in the first week in April. Some have mentioned the dew, but what connection has the dew with agriculture in the first two weeks of April? Anyone would think that we were making hay then. Is there anyone in this House who will seriously contend that, if you start this at the beginning of April, the dew is going to interfere with the operations of farming?

Yes.

Well, I am a farmer's son, and I shall be very glad to argue that out with any hon. Member after the House has adjourned. At what time did agricultural workers commence before there was a limitation of the hours of work on farms, and before the trade unions intervened to give agricultural labourers a decent working day? They used to get there as soon as it was daylight. It is idle to tell us that on any decently managed farm there is nothing for the worker to do and he has to sit in a shed waiting for the sun to dry up the dew. That is absolutely preposterous. An hon. Gentleman on the Front Opposition Bench told us this would be an intolerable nuisance and would inflict intolerable loss. I believe it would inflict intolerable loss on the whole community if you did away with summer time. A manufacturer told me his gas and electric lighting bill was reduced by £400 per annum, yet people talk about increasing the cost of production. We have heard a good deal about the Scotch mists in the valleys. The only time I was in Scotland for a month in the summer it was mist in the valleys all day long. It never dried up at all. So it would not make a great deal of difference to Scotland. As far as can make out, the climate there is not amenable to any Acts that may

be passed in this House. I put in a plea for the mass of industrial workers. This means that at the beginning of April they will have a little more time for recreation. The young people will have more tennis and cricket. Fathers can come home and take their children on an omnibus instead of going to the public-house and the cinema. It will bring us into harmony with France and Belgium. A gentleman in the City was telling me the extra hour was an awful nuisance to him in telephoning and getting the prices from France. I take it the House is not going to be guided by the interests on any one class, whether it be agriculture or the City or industry. It stands for the mass of the people, the greatest good of the greatest number.

The Home Secretary in a most contradictory speech pointed out that the second principle of the Bill was uniformity, and went on to say he would alter the details in Committee. That is quite impossible.

I did not give such a pledge. I said the point would be considered.

Then I misunderstood. The details that really matter are the dates, and the dates cannot be altered to give uniformity.

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question, "That the Question be now put," put, and agreed to.

Question put accordingly, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 169; Noes, 129.

Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the Rouse, without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 3.

Adjourned at Eleven Minutes after Four o'Clock until Monday next (14th April).