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Shannon News, 7 March 1922, Page 2

One or two humorous inedients are connected with the early development of the Naum phosphate trade. It is known that the natives of kbe island receive royalties on the cargoes, and when lliey received their first payments in money they were quite at a loss to know what to do with the precious metal, but, recognising that it had considerable value, they eventually deposited it in the bank. Their feelings for a short tune were not. reassuring, and the day alter making the deposits they drew all the money out again to see if it was all right and none had disappeared. The idea of carting away the phosphates seemed to them at first to be absurd. In their simple island home they could see nothing of the outside world except a wide expanse of ocean, and the steamers that occasionally came to them from places far beyond the sea. These steamers they thought, musthave come from some very smalt islands, and were taking away Nauru Island to make their own homelands a little larger. Before they became accustomed to the sight of loading the steamers and seeing them steam away, away, each with iis little cargo, they used to laugh heartily at the idea. Nothing in the grey dust made from the rock appeared to them to be particularly valuable.