International Conference Held at Washington Part 16

Count LEWENHAUPT, Delegate of Sweden. Mr. President, I now propose that the Conference take a recess for a few moments before a vote is taken upon the resolution.

No objection being made to the motion, the President announced that a recess would be taken until the Chair called the Conference to order.

THE PRESIDENT, having called the Conference to order, said. The recess has given an opportunity for an interchange of opinion upon the subject pending, and if the Conference be ready the vote will now be taken.

Commander SAMPSON, Delegate of the United States. Mr. President, I think that the informal discussion which we have had upon this question of the method of counting longitude must lead to the conclusion that there is a great difference of opinion. So far as I have been able to learn, many of the delegates have come here instructed to favor the resolution adopted by the Roman Conference. It is my own opinion that the recommendation to count longitude continuously from the prime meridian from west to east, as recommended by the conference at Rome, is not so good as the proposition now before us. Personally, however, I would prefer to see it counted continuously from east to west, as being more in conformity with present usage among astronomers. But, as it appears that so many delegates are instructed by their Governments to favor counting in the opposite direction, and as, if this Congress adopts any other plan than that proposed by the Conference at Rome, they will have to lay before their Governments as the action of this Congress something that will be opposed to the recommendation of the Roman Conference, and as these two recommendations would naturally tend to neutralize each other, I would favor the proposition which is now before us as being the most expedient.

I would suggest, however, that, instead of making a positive declaration upon the question, we leave it as it now stands; that is to say, that longitude shall be counted east and west from the prime meridian, without specifying which direction shall be considered positive, and declare it to be the opinion of this Congress that it is not expedient to change the present method of counting longitude both ways from the prime meridian.

Count LEWENHAUPT, Delegate from Sweden. In my opinion the delegates have not undertaken to recommend the resolutions adopted by a majority of the Conference, but only the resolutions for which they have themselves voted. As regards the fact that there may be great differences of opinion concerning the questions which remain for our consideration, I am unable to see in it any reason for our not proceeding to vote upon them. On the contrary it will be of great interest to our Governments to know the exact position taken by each of the delegates, and even if any delegate should abstain from voting, such abstention would be of interest in the event of future negotiations on the subject. I am therefore of opinion that we should proceed to vote on the remaining resolutions.

The vote was then taken upon the resolution of the Delegate of the United States, Mr. RUTHERFURD, which is as follows:

"_Resolved_, That from this meridian (_id est_, Greenwich) longitude shall be counted in two directions up to 180 degrees, east longitude being plus and west longitude minus."

The following States voted in the affirmative:

Chili, Liberia, Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Great Britain, Russia, Guatemala, Salvador, Hawaii, United States, j.a.pan, Venezuela.

The following States voted in the negative:

Italy, Sweden, Netherlands, Switzerland.

Spain,

The following States abstained from voting:

Austria-Hungary, Germany, Brazil, San Domingo, France, Turkey.

Ayes, 14; noes, 5; abstaining, 6.

The PRESIDENT then announced that the resolution was adopted.

Mr. RUTHERFURD, Delegate of the United States. Mr. President, I now propose to read the third resolution from the printed circular which has been furnished to the delegates. It is as follows:

"_Resolved_, That the Conference proposes the adoption of a universal day for all purposes for which it may be found convenient, and which shall not interfere with the use of local time where desirable. This universal day is to be a mean solar day; is to begin for all the world at the moment of midnight of the initial meridian coinciding with the beginning of the civil day and date of that meridian, and is to be counted from zero up to twenty-four hours."

This resolution is somewhat complex, and in order to facilitate debate, I propose that we first occupy ourselves only with the first clause, namely:

"_Resolved_, That the Conference proposes the adoption of a universal day for all purposes for which it may be found convenient, and which shall not interfere with the use of local time where desirable."

After having disposed of that clause we can proceed to dispose of the other parts of the resolution.

The PRESIDENT. You propose, then, to divide the resolution as printed in the circular into two resolutions, and you now offer the first part for consideration.

Mr. RUTHERFURD, Delegate of the United States. If that is the more convenient form of putting it, it meets my views. It will be more easy to discuss the subject, more easy to arrive at a decision, in that form.

M. le Comte ALBERT DE FORESTA, Delegate of Italy. I propose as an amendment the fifth resolution of the Roman Conference, which reads as follows:

"The Conference recognizes, for certain scientific needs and for the internal service of great administrations of ways of communications, such as those of railroads, lines of steams.h.i.+ps, telegraphic and postal lines, the utility of adopting a universal time, in connection with local or national times, which will necessarily continue to be employed in civil life."

The PRESIDENT. The question is now upon the amendment offered by the Delegate of Italy.

Professor ABBE, Delegate of the United States. I would like to ask whether this amendment adds anything substantially to the resolution.

I think it does not. It simply specifies the details of the resolution pending before us. That resolution "proposes the adoption of a universal day for all purposes for which it may be found convenient."

That is general. The amendment merely specifies certain of these purposes. That is a matter of detail.

Mr. ALLEN, Delegate of the United States. Mr. President, I desire to offer an amendment to the amendment, as follows:

"Civil or local time is to be understood as the mean time of the approximately central meridian of a section of the earth's surface, in which a single standard of time may be conveniently used."

Mr. RUTHERFURD, Delegate of the United States. Mr. President, it does not seem to me that it is within the competence of this Conference to define what is local time. That is a thing beyond us.

Mr. W. F. ALLEN, Delegate of the United States, then said: Mr.

President and gentlemen, all efforts to arrive at uniformity in scientific or every-day usage originate in a desire to attain greater convenience in practice. The multiplicity of coins of which the relative value can only be expressed by fractions, the various common standards of weights and of measures, are inconvenient both to the business man and the scientist. Alike inconvenient to both are the diverse standards of time by which the cities of the world are governed, differing, as they do, by all possible fractions of hours.

All coins have a relative and interchangeable value based upon their weight and fineness. Weights and measures remain the same by whatever unit they may be expressed; but, primarily, time can only be measured by a standard actually or apparently in motion. Absolutely accurate mean local time, varying, as it does, by infinitesimal differences at every point in the circuit of the earth, may be shown on a stationary object, but cannot in general be kept by an individual or object in motion. The mean local time of some fixed point in each locality must be taken as the standard for practical use. The important question to be determined is, over what extent of territory, measuring east and west from such fixed point, its mean time may be employed for all ordinary purposes without inconvenience. This can be absolutely determined only by practical experience.

Careful study of this phase of this subject led, perhaps, more directly than any one single cause, to the proposal of the detailed system of standard time which now satisfactorily controls the operations of one hundred and twenty thousand miles of railway in the United States and Canada, and governs the movements of fifty millions of people.

Before the recent change there were a number of localities where standards of time were exclusively employed which varied as much as thirty minutes, both on the east and the west, from mean local time, without appreciable inconvenience to those using them. From this fact the conclusion was inevitable that within those limits a single standard might be employed. The result has proved this conclusion to have been well founded.

No public reform can be accomplished unless the evil to be remedied can be made plainly apparent. That an improvement will be effected must be clearly demonstrated, or the new status of affairs which will exist after the change, must be shown to have been already successfully tried. Here, as in law, custom and precedent are all powerful. It would be a difficult task to secure the general adoption of any system of time-reckoning which cannot be employed by all cla.s.ses of the community. Business men would refuse to regard as a reform any proposition which introduced diversity where uniformity now exists, nor would railway managers consent to adopt for their own use a standard of time not coinciding with or bearing a ready relation to the standard employed in other business circles. To adopt the time of a universal day for all transportation purposes throughout the world, and to use it collaterally with local time, would simply restore, and possibly still more complicate, the very condition of things in this country which the movement of last year was intended to and did to a great extent obviate. Railway managers desire that the time used in their service shall be either precisely the same as that used by the public, or shall differ from it at as few points as possible, and then by the most readily calculated differences. The public, on the other hand, have little use for absolutely accurate time, except in connection with matters of transportation, but will refuse to adopt a standard which would materially alter their accustomed habits of thought and of language in every-day life. That this position is absurd may be argued, and, perhaps, admitted, but it is a fact, and one which cannot be disregarded.

The adoption of the universal day or any system of time-reckoning based upon infrequent--such as the great quadrant--meridians, to be used by transportation lines collaterally with local time, is, therefore, practically impossible.

Shall it, then, be concluded that there is no hope of securing uniformity in time-reckoning for practical purposes? Or does the proposition for the general division of the earth's surface into specified sections, governed by standards based upon meridians fifteen degrees or one hour apart, supply the remedy? Objections have been urged against this proposition on account of difficulties encountered, or supposed to be encountered, in the vicinity of the boundary lines between the sections. It is argued that the contact of two sections with standards of time differing by one hour will cause numerous and insuperable difficulties. In railway business, in which time is more largely referred to than in any other, the experience of the past year has proved this fear to be groundless. It is true that the approximate local time of a number of cities near the boundary lines between the eastern and central sections in the United States is still retained. A curious chapter of incidents could be related which led to this retention, not affecting, however, the merits of the case; but the fact serves to show that changes much greater than thirty minutes from local time would not be acceptable.

Adjacent to and on either side of all national boundary lines the inhabitants become accustomed to the standards of weights, measures, and money of both countries, and constantly refer to and use them without material inconvenience. In the readjustment of a boundary upon new lines of demarcation it must be expected that some temporary difficulties in business transactions will be encountered, but all history shows that such difficulties soon adjust themselves. Legal enactments will finally determine the precise boundaries of the several sections. If different laws respecting many other affairs of life may exist on either side of a State or national boundary line, with positive advantage or without material inconvenience, why should laws respecting time-reckoning be an exception? Coins and measures are distinguished by their names. So, also, may standards of time be distinguished.

The adoption of standard time for all purposes of daily life, based upon meridians fifteen degrees apart, would practically abolish the use of exact local time, except upon those meridians. Numerous circ.u.mstances might be related demonstrating how very inaccurate and undetermined was the local time used in many cities in this country before the recent change.

Except for certain philosophical purposes, does the inherent advantage claimed in the use of even approximately accurate local time really exist? Would the proposed change affect any custom of undoubted value to the community? These questions have been answered in the negative by the experience of Great Britain since January 13, 1848, of Sweden since January 1, 1879, and of the United States and Canada since November 18, 1883.

Greenwich time is exclusively used in Great Britain, and differs from mean local time about eight minutes on the east and about twenty-two and a half minutes on the west. In Sweden the time of the fifteenth degree of east longitude is the standard for all purposes. It differs from mean local time about thirty-six and a half minutes on the east and about sixteen minutes on the west. In the United States the standards recently adopted are used exclusively in cities like Portland, Me., (33,800 inhabitants,) and Atlanta, Ga., (37,400 inhabitants,) of which the local times are, respectively, nineteen minutes and twenty two minutes faster than the standard, and at Omaha, Neb., (30,500 inhabitants,) and Houston, Tex., (16,500 inhabitants,) each twenty-four minutes slower. At Ellsworth, Me., a city of six thousand inhabitants, a change of twenty-six minutes has been made.

Nearly eighty-five per cent. of the total number of cities in the United States of over ten thousand inhabitants have adopted the new standard time for all purposes, and it is used upon ninety-seven and a half per cent. of all the miles of railway lines.

Let us now consider whether insuperable practical difficulties owing to geographical peculiarities will prevent the adoption of this system throughout the world.

A table has been prepared, and accompanies this paper, upon which are designated the several governing meridians and names suggested for the corresponding sectional times. For the use of this table I am indebted to Mr. E. B. Elliott, of this city.

On the North American continent, in the United States and Canada, the 75th, 90th, 105th, and 120th west Greenwich meridians now govern time.

In Mexico the 105th west meridian is approximately central, except for Yucatan, which is traversed by the 90th. For Guatemala, Salvador, and Costa Rica, the 90th west meridian is approximately central. San Domingo closely approaches and Cuba touches the 75th.

In South America--the United States of Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, the western portion of Bolivia, and Chili would use the time of the 75th west meridian, while Venezuela, Guiana, western Brazil, including the Amazon River region, eastern Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, and the Argentine Republic, would be governed by the time of the 60th meridian. In eastern Brazil the 45th west meridian would govern.

Pa.s.sing to Europe, we find Great Britain already governed by the zero meridian time, which can also be used in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, and Portugal. The 15th east meridian, which is about as far east of Berlin as west of Vienna, and no more distant from Rome than from Stockholm, now governs all time in Sweden. This time could also be advantageously used in Denmark, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, and Servia. The time of the 30th east meridian, which is nearly the mean between Constantinople and St. Petersburg times, could be used in Western Russia, Turkey, Roumania, Bulgaria, East Roumelia, and Greece. When the development of Eastern Russia in Europe shall require it, the division of that great country between the times of the 30th and 45th east meridians, upon lines of convenience similar to those employed in the United States, can doubtless be arranged. The governing meridians for Africa appear to present some advantages, especially for Egypt, and no insuperable difficulties; but for continents where the boundaries of countries are so loosely defined, the limits of time-reckoning cannot well and need not now be shown. They would ultimately adjust themselves.

In Asia the 60th east meridian pa.s.ses through Khiva. Bombay would use the 75th and Calcutta the 90th. The 105th east meridian touches Siam, the 120th is near Shanghai, and the 135th pa.s.ses through j.a.pan and near Corea. The 150th meridian of west longitude is sufficiently near Hawaii. In Australia the 150th, 135th, and 120th meridians of east longitude are admirably located for governing, respectively, the time of the eastern, central, and western divisions of that continent.