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 classes 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 circumstances 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.