Now, I submit that in the words used in my resolution all this is embraced, and a good deal more, for this universal day is to be adopted “for all purposes for which it may be found convenient.”  If it were desirable that every purpose for which the universal day may be found convenient should be specified, it would make a very long resolution.  On the other hand, however, we might find in the end that we had omitted some of the purposes for which it was eminently convenient.  It appears, also, that in this same fifth Roman resolution all questions of chronology of universal date, etc., are omitted, although they are brought forward and appear in the sixth resolution.  It seems to me, Mr. President, that nothing would be gained by the adoption of this amendment, for everything that is embraced there is more comprehensively embraced in the original resolution.

General STRACHEY, Delegate of Great Britain.  In explanation of the amendment offered by the Delegate of Italy, let me call attention to what really passed at the Roman Conference.  I find, first of all, in the report of the Roman Conference, in the abstract of the discussion before the Special Committee, these words, (p. 49 of the reprint:)

     “The fourth resolution, in favor of a universal hour for
     certain scientific and practical purposes, is unanimously
     adopted.”

There appears no discussion whatever upon it; not a word seems to have been said as to how it should be defined or acted upon.  I then turn back to the report of the committee which prepared the resolutions, and there we see what, in reality, they had in their minds when they drew up that resolution.  It is perfectly evident that they had no intention of tying the hands of anybody.  This is what they say on page 26 of the report: 

“The administrations of railroads, of the great steamship lines, telegraph lines, and postal routes, which would thus secure for their relations with each other a uniform time, excluding all complication and error, could nevertheless not entirely avoid the use of local time in their relations with the public.  They would probably use the universal time only in their internal service, for the rules of the road, for the time-tables of their engineers and conductors, for the connection of trains at frontiers, etc.; but the time-tables for the use of the public could hardly be expressed otherwise than in local or national time.  The depots or stations of the railroads, post-offices, and telegraph offices, and the waiting-rooms, could exhibit outwardly clocks showing local or national time, while within the offices there would be, besides, clocks indicating universal time.  Telegraphic dispatches could show in future the time of despatch and of receipt, both in local and universal time.”

Now, I think that the subject of universal time is dealt with in a better manner in the proposition offered by Mr. RUTHERFURD than in the proposition which emanated from the Congress at Rome.  This Conference cannot designate positively the manner in which local time may be best reckoned.  We are concerned now only with universal time.  It may, however, be proper that the resolution offered by Mr. RUTHERFURD in regard to the employment of universal time should be supplemented by something more specific—­something, for instance, of this sort: