Therefore it is impossible for us to abandon our old system of time, although in our navy we generally use the customary reckoning or “heure a la franque.”

Finally, permit me to state that I am ready to cast my vote in favor of a universal hour, with the precise understanding that the universal hour will have to be limited to international transactions, and that will not interfere with the rules up to now in force in my own country.

Before resuming my seat I wish to thank the President and the members of the Conference for their kind indulgence in having listened to my remarks.

The PRESIDENT, The Chair would remind the Delegate of Turkey that the following resolution was passed at our last session: 

“Resolved, That the Conference propose 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 or other standard time where desirable.”

The very difficulty which the Delegate of Turkey anticipates was thus carefully provided for in the resolution just read.

Mr. SANDFORD FLEMING, Delegate of Great Britain.  To my mind it is of very great importance that this resolution should be adopted.  I have already given generally my views on this question, and therefore I do not intend to trespass on the attention of the Conference beyond saying a very few words.  From what I have already ventured to submit, it will be obvious that I hold that all our usages in respect to the reckoning of time are arbitrary.  Of one thing there can be no doubt.  There is only one, and there can only be one flow of time, although our inherited usages have given us a chaotic number of arbitrary reckonings of this one conception.  There can be no doubt of another matter; the progress of civilization requires a simple and more rational system than we now have.  We have, it seems to me, reached a stage when a unification of the infinite number of time-reckonings is demanded.

This unification will be, to a large extent, accomplished if the resolution be adopted, and by adopting it, it seems to me to be in the power of the Conference to confer lasting benefits on the world.

Universal time will in no way interfere with local time.  Each separate community may continue the usages of the past in respect to local time, or may accept whatever change the peculiar conditions in each case may call for.  But the use of universal time will not necessarily involve a change; it will rather be something added to what all now possess.  It will be a boon to those who avail themselves of it.

To the east of the prime meridian all possible local days will be in advance; to the west all possible days will be behind the universal day.

The universal day, as defined by the resolution, will at once be the mean of all possible local days, and the standard to which they will all be related by a certain known interval, that interval being determined by the longitude.