The PRESIDENT.  The Chair would remind the Delegate of Spain, Mr. RUIZ DEL ARBOL, that at its last session the Conference resolved, with singular unanimity, that it was expedient to adopt “a universal day for all purposes for which it may be found convenient, and which shall not interfere with the local or other standard time where desirable.”  The Chair would politely suggest that the subject now under consideration is the adoption of the proposition recommended by the Conference at Rome, and which has been presented here by the Delegate of Sweden, Count LEWENHAUPT.

Mr. RUIZ DEL ARBOL, Delegate of Spain.  My proposition is to abstain from the adoption of any one meridian, and that we leave the matter to some other Congress, organized with the special object of regulating this question.

Commander SAMPSON, Delegate of the United States.  Mr. President, as near as I can follow the Delegate of Spain, he seems to be under the apprehension that by the adoption of the universal day, which has been proposed here, we should either gain or lose time in our chronology; that we should skip 12 hours, more or less.  But, of course, that is not the case.  Any event which has occurred, or which will occur, at the time of the adoption of the universal day will be expressed just as exactly with reference to time as if the time had been calculated from the beginning of the Christian era.  There will not only be no confusion, but it seems to me the adoption of the universal day will tend to avoid confusion hereafter, because confusion must exist where we have so many standards of time.  Now, if any event which is taking place, or has taken place at any past time in the history of the world, is referred to the prime meridian, or is expressed in the time of any locality or of several localities, these times will all be different.  The adoption of the universal day is to avoid any difficulty of that sort, and any event which has transpired will, when expressed in the time of the universal day—­that is, according to the universal method—­represent exactly the interval of time which has elapsed since the beginning of the Christian era.  Nothing is gained or lost.

General STRACHEY, Delegate of Great Britain.  It seems to me that the Congress having accepted the resolution to which reference was made a little while ago, adopting the universal day, it is incumbent upon us, in the nature of things, to determine when that universal day shall begin.  The resolution presented by the Delegate of the United States proposes to define how that universal day shall be reckoned; that is, when it shall begin and how its hours shall be counted.