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McEWEN REPORTS ON CHINA

Steel city of Anshan is heart of future

In 1943 when the Japanese were driven out of Manchu- ria the city of Anshan had a ppopulation of 250,000 and the rudiments of a scattered steel industry.

When the Kuoming- tang took over = most of. these = steel enterpris- ,es went out of {business and the population dropped to less fee than 140,000.

# In the seven § years since the People’s Re public of China was found- ed, Anshan has become a great steel centre of 670,000 people, most of them workers and families of workers in the vast amalgamated joint state enterprise of steel.

I went through several de- partments of this gigantic steel plant and met the work- ers at the blast furnaces, in the rolling mills and sheet mills. I talked to scores of young workers in the control towers operating the heavy rolling mills.

I also watched men build- ing new additions like a great ant hill, with bare hands and sweating backs, and very little of anything we in the West call construction machinery.

In one of the big steel de- partments a young woman— she was about 25 years old— was directing operations. She was also the department lead- er of the Communist party. By our standards she would searcely qualify.as a fashion

plate model, but she was vib-

rantly enthusiastic about steel production totals.

She rattled off figures with such rapidity that it was dif- ficult for me to get them all down.

Her tonnage for 1956 includ- ed some 3 million tons of pig iron, 2.5 million tons of steel rails, 2 million tons of rolled steel, girders and~the like.

With a sweep of her arm she took in the sprawling giant of Anshan with its 19 open hearth furnaces, its old and new rolling mills, steel cable, sheet steel, tubing and other heavy steel departments, .and, with a proud smile said, ‘Next year when we get our newest mill going and improve on technique, we will present Chairman Mao Tse-tung with a doubled production.”

The best Japan could do while in possess of Anshan in its highest production year of 1942 was 840,000 tons gross. Later under Kuomintang mal- administration Anshan pro- duction figures were consid- erably below that total.

xt xt xt

Anshan has another prob- lem. In the steel mills there are about 90,000 eligible young bachelors who want to get married, but there are no girls. In China, as elsewhere, heavy steel is generally outside the range of women workers. So the male population in the mills and in the city generally is about ten to one above the female population.

It was a serious problem and the boys placed the ques-

tion before the local Commun-

In every city of China children like these are growing up to a bright future

ist party organization for a solution.

Since the old song of “Love Will Find a Way” holds good everywhere, the local govern- ment evolved a plan. Next year it will build a big tex- tile factory in Anshan which will employ around 40,000 women workers, who will be encouraged to come in from other cities.

I suggested that for the first year, at least, the labor turn- over was likely to be very heavy. The city officials agreed, but laughingly re- plied, “Well, we’ll just have to encourage more girls to come to Anshan.”

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Like a confirmed pessimist, I harped on this additional load on their housing crisis.

“Well,” they said, “since liberation we have built 1.5 million square metres of new housing space in four and five floor apartment buildings. We'll be very happy to con- tinue building to help our workers provide the steel our country needs.”

My visit to the Anshan kin- dergartens, there are six of them connected with the steel industry alone, and 29 day nurseries, was a happy experi- ence.

Hundreds of little tots gave use a rousing welcome, first because they thought we were their “big uncle” from the So- viet Union. Nevertheless, when they learned we came from Canada and not the USSR, their enthusiasm was no less restrained.

Chinese children are very responsive. They are neither shy nor forward and totally uninhibited. When we asked

one kindergarten of some 200

tots ranging in age from thie? to five years to sing for de one little girl, with al be dignity and decorum of 4 Tos caninni, stepped forward, rais- ed her little hands for atten tion and quiet, and proce? i to conduct the “class” i © series of children’s song®

To watch the earnestnes>. of scores of those little face rt they sang with all their heat 1 faces clean and_ faces ish one could not help but J : through the midst of 2 Ae that he was looking a © strong and confident fac€ the new China of tomorr® ot How well the English ee Kipling wrote, probablY (ine ter than he knew, that det dawn comes up like thune out of China ’cross the

We saw those childre? ae their thousands in kindé ee tens and nurseries all th® and from Anshan to Canto? ngs in their laughter an vid we heard the voice of @ wo awakening.

Atom power plants wont displace hydro-electric

SAN FRANCISCO

_ Atomic power will not take the place of ‘hydro-electric power plants as outlined in the California water plan ac- cording to an official of the state’s department of water resources.

M. J. Shelton, deputy depart- ment director, refuted conten- tion that atomic-electric gen-

erators will make hydro-elec- tric plants as “obsoluete as a coal stove ...as we. have read and been told.”

Shelton told the Americans Society of Civic Engineers that

DECEMBER 7, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE —

hydro plants, ‘with their ae mendous flexibility of ope’ at tion,” would compleme? ate omic plants to even 2 ntl degree than they Pret complement ele

steam lants. é e fo In 1965, he said, som will

percent of all generat os be atomic, and by 1980 cent will be atomic ele

an

Shelton predicted that e et

other 24 years atomic P ai

will handle most of the.- ow’

power demand. He said, oa ever, hydro plants wou.

ry peak loads. pact rn

ctric: