THE TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR SYSTEM. (Hansard, 7 June 1934)

§ LORD NEWTON
My Lords, I rise only for the purpose of making an earnest appeal to the Government Department concerned—though I have considerable doubt which Department it is—not to expose this country to the derision of the civilised world by paying attention to the arguments brought forward by those who are protesting against the experiment now being conducted by the B.B.C. I observe that the B.B.C. have expressed the opinion that these objections are founded on a mistaken impression. That, of course, is a polite way of saying that the people who write these letters are incapable of understanding a simple fact or a simple question. Personally it strikes me that these objections which have appeared in the Press with regard to this experiment are a most painful exhibition of ignorance and prejudice. You find people actually proclaiming to the world 959 that they cannot count beyond twelve. If I were unable to count beyond twelve, I should prefer to keep the fact to myself.
I wonder what foreign nations will think of education in this country, more especially as the kind of people who write are people upon whom thousands have been expended in a vain endeavour to educate them properly. If they do not write and complain that they cannot count they produce other reasons. They complain in brokenhearted accents: "Am I supposed to sacrifice my grandfather clock? Because it is not going to be any further use to me. And, if I do so, I shall have to invest in a twenty-four-hour dial watch or clock in order to ascertain the time." I expect I have seen as much of foreign countries as those who write those letters, who I suppose must be largely old men, or perhaps old women, who are suffering from imaginary grievances, but I am bound to say that in the course of my experience I have never come across a twenty-four-hour dial clock or watch. I suppose they do exist, because I have heard them spoken of, but everybody manages to get along without them.
This clotted mass of ignorance, as I cannot but call it, is reinforced from another quarter. My noble friend Lord Cranworth, for whose intelligence I have considerable respect, the other day in a debate that took place on this question in your Lordships' House, solemnly stated that in his neighbourhood particularly there was a vast number of people of all ages who were firmly convinced that the institution of summer time was responsible not only for drought but for floods—and I dare say that if an earthquake took place that would be attributed to the same cause. Is it possible to argue with people who hold that sort of view? It seems impossible to make them understand that there is no occasion to pollute their lips by talking about 14 or 15 o'clock or whatever it is. It is not an oral matter at all, it is merely a matter of alterations of time-tables and postmarks for the purpose of arriving at greater correctness. As for investing in twenty-four-hour clocks, of course that is pure nonsense. Nothing of the kind is necessary. It really seems to me that if you are going to listen to these people and be swayed by their arguments you might just as well say that physical geography should no 960 longer be taught in this country because it might hurt the feelings of the people who believe that the earth is flat.
Apparently, the public is divided into two schools on this subject. There are those whom I have mentioned, and on the other side there are the scientific people, the scientific societies, men of great experience in administration in different parts of the Empire, and, I might add, all foreigners. Somebody is going to decide between those two schools of thought. I wonder how they will arrive at their decision, and I wonder what their decision will be. I do not know which Department is going to decide, but judging from the fact that they have been unable to take any action for something like nearly twenty years they will probably find it difficult to come to a decision now. I should not wonder if, in the long run, they invoke the assistance of the Whips. The Whips, being people of notoriously little imagination, will probably, when they are consulted, say: "Upon the whole the opinion of the Astronomer Royal, for instance, ought to be considered, and it is just possible his opinion might be a better one than that of the man who thinks summer time is responsible for floods and all the rest of it." But on the other hand each of them has a vote. The Astronomer Royal has a vote and the old woman who thinks that her grandfather clock may become useless has got a vote, and they balance one another. I am very much afraid that the stupid people are in the majority, and it is possible that the decision may be given on their side. I hope that will not be the case, but it seems to me there is an unfortunate probability that that is what will happen. Various Governments have tried to tackle this question, but no Government has shown to much advantage.
Either the thing is wrong or it is right. If it is wrong the Government ought to have said at once that this is an impracticable proposition and that they would have nothing to do with it. If, on the other hand, it is good—and it is good, as everyone knows in his heart who has any common sense—they ought to enact it without having recourse to this particular experiment. This experiment seems to be quite inconclusive. Everyone who cannot count and is probably supremely ignorant of most questions is entitled to express his or her opinion, and that will 961 be thrown into the scale against those who really know what they are talking about. It is possible, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, that we may make ourselves an exhibition of futility to the world at large. If the Government are afraid to deal with this question themselves obviously what they ought to have done was to have gone to a railway company and asked that company to try the experiment without waiting for an official lead. I venture to say that if they had done that everyone would have recognised the value of this extremely modest innovation. In a very short time it would have been universally recognised as a thing that ought to have been adopted long ago, and everyone would have found it a vast improvement on the system in existence, at the present moment as far as reckoning is concerned.

§ LORD TEMPLEMORE
My Lords, we have had a amusing little debate on this subject, especially the speech of my noble friend who has just sat down. He will not, I am sure, expect me to enter into any argument with him or to comment in any way on his diatribe against those who happen to disagree with him on this particular subject. I must say that my noble friend Lord Lucan and I were rather hurt at one stage when he suggested that Whips were people with no imagination, but the noble Lord from the trend of his further remarks seemed to indicate he was referring to the Whips in another place and not to those in your Lordships' House.
I have been asked by my noble friend Lord Lamington a specific Question, and to that I have been asked to give the following reply. Your Lordships will remember that my noble friend Lord Feversham stated on the 7th of March that a certain experiment would begin with the B.B.C. for an indefinite period a month later, and that the Government proposed after that experiment had been given a thorough trial to ask the Corporation for a report on the matter with particular reference to the attitude that the public had taken up towards the innovation. The present position is that the experiment is still proceeding. No date has yet been fixed for its determination, and therefore the B.B.C. have not been asked to furnish, and have not yet furnished, a report.

§ LORD LAMINGTON
May I ask when they are likely to report?

§ LORD TEMPLEMORE
I cannot say. The period has not yet been determined.

§ LORD NEWTON
Would the noble Lord inform me which Department is responsible for the decision of this question? We have never been able to ascertain that.

§ LORD TEMPLEMORE
I have answered the Question on the Paper, and I am afraid I cannot answer the question which the noble Lord puts to me.

§ LORD NEWTON
The question has been going on for fifteen years or more, and somebody must know by this time which is the Department concerned.

§ LORD TEMPLEMORE
I am replying at the moment as the representative of the Post Office, because that is the Department which has dealings with the B.B.C., but I believe that the Department which is usually in charge of this matter is the Home Department.

§ LORD LAMINGTON
Why the Home Department? What have they got to do with the Post Office and with dies that stamp the time of the arrival of telegrams and with the times shown on post boxes and that sort of thing? Why should it be the Home Office? There is one minor point I should like to make. I see in some reports of the B.B.C. experiment the statement that four figures should always be employed to designate the hours. I do not quite see the necessity for that, and I think it alarms the public more than anything to think that 9.5 in the morning should he 09.05. I do not see why that is necessary at all. If you look at Bradshaw's Continental Guide or Cook's Continental Guide you will find that a.m. trains are shown simply as 9.5 and so on. Four figures may be necessary for scientific purposes—I do not know—but I think it is very complicated and confusing to the public, and I hope the noble Lord will ask for information on this point.

§ LORD TEMPLEMORE
I think I can answer that question in a way, though I am not sure I am right. As the noble Lord knows, various Government Departments use this system, especially the War Office and the Admiralty. I know something about the War Office, and I 963 know that four figures are invariably used in the Army.

§ LORD LAMINGTON
I am talking about the effect on the general public who, as my noble friend suggested, are so ignorant and dense that they will think they will have to alter all their times for social purposes. Of course in no single instance will that be necessary, but I consider this proposal is prejudiced by the fact that the Government propose to insert four figures instead of two in a.m. times.

THE EARL OF LUCAN
May I remind my noble friend that the Commission over which I think the noble Lord, Lord Stone-haven, presided, recommended that the four-figure system should be adopted? That was the reason.

§ LORD LAMINGTON
My Lords, I beg to withdraw my Motion.