EDITORIAL ~ Support the CPR sérike HE central issue in the CPR = Strike, now in its second week, is one of wide public » concern. This crippling strike, J forced upon the Brotherhood of Firemen and Engineers, is not | against “technological progress | (automation) as such, but rath- | et to determine who are to | be the beneficiaries of automa- | tion — the working people or | the powerful monopolies! ’ @ Unlike the Luddites in the ag °atly stages of the English indus- | trial revolution, who -regarded | labor-saving machines as their | €nemy,’’ workers in this en- © lightened age regard new pro- @ duction techniques as a means as of lightening the burdens of la- bor. On the other hand, big tt COrporations like the CPR re- @! gard automation as a means of ¥ displacing wage labor and in- a creasing their profits. a §©=-_ With the introduction of die , sel-driven locomotives on Cana- dian and U.S. rail systems, a campaign got under way years 4880 to dispense with firemen and leave one man only at the i controls, . | The CPR strike, forced upon the Brotherhood of Firemen and Engineers (BFE) by an arbitrary vé ruling of an arbitration board ‘4 award’’ recommending the el- mination of firemen in freight i q yards and rail terminals, is the att OUtcome. It is the thin edge of _ the wedge for the elimination of ie all firemen on railway diesel e locomotives. a he hundred or more railway op Systems in the U.S. recently a fave this contentious issue a » hoist’ for three years, pending further study of the problem. tht The Canadian Labor Congress, ™ Supporting the striking CPR _ Workers, proposed a similar hoist ri : jo) 19 Of one year here to permit a Published weekly at Room 6 — 426 Main Street, a Vancouver 4, B.C. p Phone: MArine 5288 of Ss Editor — TOM McEWEN if Basics Editor — HAL GRIFFIN ye! Business Manager — RITA WHYTE Subscription Rates: . bet One Year: $4.00 i Six months: $2.25 of 6«§=Canadian and Commonwealth P} countries (except Australia): $4.00 rl@ One year. Australia, United States and all other countries: $5.00 one | year. 4 : thorough study of the problem. The CPR chiefs turned down the CLC proposals. The CPR wants a showdown now. It re- lies on the St. Laurent govern- ment (facing a federal election) to support it behind the scenes; to appear ‘impartial’ while playing the CPR’s game. Given the opportunity to dis- charge its diesel firemen in freight yards and terminals, it would only be a matter of a very short time before 90 percent of its entire firemen personnel were laid off. And the CNR stands ready to follow suit should the union be defeated in the CPR dispute, as do 140 railway sys tems in the US. In this CPR strike, the St. Laurent government has a press’ ing obligation to Canadians which it should not be permitted to evade. To implement and ex- tend the proposals for settle- ment made by organized labor through the CLC, a government administration should be plac- ed in charge of the CPR with instructions to end the strike immediately, establish the status quo of the firemen and guaran- tee in the course of commission investigations as proposed by the CLC that not a single fire- man or railroad worker shall be displaced by automation of the CPR system. NE of China’s foremost scien- tists has just concluded a story which he and a Canadian scien- tists began 30 years ago. The Chinese is Dr. Pei Wen- chung and in 1929, as a young palaeontologist, he was excavat- ing at Chou K’ou Tien with Dr. Davidson Black, Canadian-born professor of anatomy at the Rockefeller Institute in Peking, when he found the first skull of what has since become known to every school student as Peking Man. : But the story did not begin there. Like every other story of science, it is an international story and it had its beginning around the beginning of the cen- tury with two Germans, Dr. Haberer, a collector who found in the apothecaries’ shops of old China a rich source of fossil re- mains, and Prof. Max Schlosser of Munich whose studies of the material Haberer collected direct- ed international - attention to China as a birthplace of Man. The story was continued by a Swedish geologist, Gunnar An- dersson, now director of Eastern Asiatic Collections in Stockholm, who was the first to appreciate the importance of the now famous Chou K’ou Tien site in North China, and Otto Zdansky, who worked with Andersson and found the first tooth of Peking Man. It was Zandsky’s discovery that drew Davidson Black to China. os eo: os Black took the appointment as professor of anatomy at the Rockefeller Institute in Peking because he ardently believed that the human race had originated in China and he wanted,to be where he could prove his belief. Like another famous Canadian, Dr. Norman Bethune, who died while serving with the Chinese Liberation armies, Black was an indefatigable worker, passionate- ly devoted to his mission — but, unlike Bethune, his mission was the past, not the future. When young Dr. Pei, after near- ly two years’ excavations, found the skull of Peking Man em- bedded in limestone at Chou K’ou Tien Black took four months to free it from the stone. In his eagerness to complete his studies he took to working through the night, driving himself beyond his strength. And one morning in March 1934 his secretary, enter- ing his room at 9 a.m. to get his notes, found him dead at his desk, clutching the skull of Pek- ing Man in his hand. it xt xt Now Dr. Pei has added another chapter that began in the apothe- caries’ shops of China. For among the “dragons’ bones” sold by the apothecaries, fossils to be ground down into medicines for every human ailment, were found gigantic teeth, far larger than human teeth but remarkably human in appearance, of a being to which scientists gave the name of Gigantopithecus. Scientists have been arguing for years over whether these teeth came from a giant ape or a giant early man. Prof. F. Weidenreich, who _ succeeded Black at Peking, maintained that the teeth came from a giant man. G. H. R. von Koenigswald, pro- fessor at the University of Utrecht renowned for his dis- coveries of primitive man in In- donesia, contended that the teeth were those of a giant ape. Dr. Pei and his colleagues have settled the argument. The new China is not only conscious of its ancient civilization, its pre- history stretching back to the dawn of Man, it is able to explore and preserve it. Working with ali the resources of the state at their command they have proved conclusively that the teeth are those of exinct giant apes. JANUARY 11, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 7