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Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 296, 13 September 1927, Page 13

Some Auckland business men have found an easy and profitable way of disposing of old sailing ships. The fourmasted schooner Aneiura has just been disposed of in Melbourne, and Aucklanders will remember the case of the Guy C. Goss last year (says the "Star”). Briefly, the method is this: A small syndicate buys a vessel, loads her with lumber, and away she goes. The owners collect the freight mousy, and apparently forget that they ever owned the vessel. When she reaches her port of discharge the crew claim their wages, and, there being no response from tho owners, the vessel is sold to meet the claims. In American ports at the present time there are hundreds of sailing ships of all rigs, many of which were built to meet the shortage during the war. As they are not worth the cost of breaking up, it has been the practice to make them up into rafts of from ten to twenty vessels, and tow them out ip sea, whore they are burnt. Here is evidently one solution of tho problem of getting rid of junk at a good profit. A group of Maori gentlemen call attention to the frequent use by thoughtless persons of the word “Native” as applied to Maoris by public prints (says “N.A.T.” in the Auckland "Star”). They point out that perhaps the word is not intentionally contemptuous, and that it is not at. all indicative, as a white man born in New Zealand may just as reasonably be called "a native" as a Maori. Mr. Lansbury recently said in the House of Commons that the word “native” must not be used officially as applied to Indians. A word, blameless in Itself, acquires a suggestion of inferiority. Another ill-mannered word is "Jap,” which the Japanese people seriously resent. We have an offensive way also of referring to Chinese as "Chinamen,” which irritates them, as also does the dreadful word “Chow.” The Maori gentlemen who write point out that no individual of any nation chooses his nationality, that in the eyes of the Creator all are equal, and that contemptuous appellatons are merely exhibitions of ignorance.