THE DIAMOND QUESTION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5760, 15 September 1879, Page 3

THE DIAMOND QUESTION.

Our attention has been drawn to an extraordinary statement made by the Judge of the Croydon County Court, during the course of a trial lately heard before him, to the effect that “Cape diamonds are not to be regarded as ordinary diamonds.” The complainant in the case had bought a diamond ring for £4O, or thereabouts, and sued the vendor for the return of the money, on the ground that the ring was not a “diamond ring',” being composed of “ Capo diamonds,” and so not answering the description of the “real” article for which it was sold. The Judge gave a verdict for the complainant, on the ground that, whereas the ring was represented to be a “ diamond ” ring, its real nature was not equal to this description. “ Cape diamonds,” to quote his words again, could not “be regarded as ordinary diamonds.” Such a statement, made on the presumed authority of a Judge, is likely to create a very serious prejudice against the Cape stones,. the more serious because it is utterly unfounded. A bad Cape diamond may not be equal to a good Brazilian stone, any more than a bad Brazilian diamond is equal to a good Cape stone ; but they are both equally diamonds ; their natural formation is the same, and the only difference is in their ever-varying size, color, and brilliancy, and iu the accident that the Cape is not iu Smith America, or Brazil in South Africa. I'he value of the diamonds annually exported from Africa amounts to at least two millions sterling ; this trade has been built up solely on the quality of the diamonds found at the South African diggings, and it would be little short of a disaster for the thousands engaged at the diamond-fields to find their occupation suddenly gone because of an unreasoning panic, such as the Croydon County Court Judge’s dictum is calculated to create. To deny that a Cape diamond is a diamond is about as reasonable and correct as to assert that Tasmanian tin is not the same as the produce of Cornwall, or that New Zealand iron is different from the produce of this country. Instances have come under our notice where Australian sovereigns have been declined as counterfeit, in consequence of the pale color of the metal ; and it would be really more rational to lay down the dictum that “ Australian 'gold is not to be regarded as ordinary gold,” than to apply such an assertion to Cape diamonds.—English paper.