DUTY ON GREENSTONE.

Grey River Argus, 27 July 1907, Page 4

DUTY ON GREENSTONE.

In increasing the duty on greenstone the Government is taking a product that of all products is peculiar to •New Zealand, says the New Zealand Times. So far as is known greenstone has only been discovered in this country, and. for that reason it has become symbolical of the country, and of particular value sentimentally to the native race. Th e stone age of the Maori is but yesterday, and the chief relics of Maoridom in the manner of talismanic trinkets exist in the tribal tikis and meres, many of which have wonderful histories and peculiar associations Tie bulk of our greenstone comes from the West Coast where it is .found in river beds and on the sea coast in the form usually of water-iworn boulders that give little outward evidence of the beautifully- . marked stone that may be within. It is- a most difficult stone to cut, so difiv cut that it .took native experts years to fashion the most simple of the implements that were made of greenstone, with the result that such implements were never very numerous, and were always highly valued by their owners. There are only two or three tradesmen in New Zealand who go in for cutting the stone, the bulk of which is shipped away to the Continent, Belgium and Germany principally, where it is deftly, cut into She hundred, and one trinkets that may be purchased in any jeweller's shop. A duty of 20 per cent has been paid ;on cut greenstone up till, the present, but the new tariff adds another 10 per cent to goods made of" the national peibjble of New Zealand. So popular has greenstone 'become that the real •article has ibeen imitated to 'a marvellous degree of perfection and it (would be well, if "the real thing;" is to bear a duty of 30 per cent that the imitation should be taxed "out . of , existence '"•' l

General Alikhanoff, a former governor of Ttiflis, -was driving at Alexandrapol with h:.s .son and General Glieiboff and the latter's wife and daugh-;. ter on the 15th irtst when two bomibs' "were thrown. at them. These killed •General Alikanoff^ Madame Glieboff and the coachman, . and injured the others. On the 16 th in-st a bomb exploded loutside. the United: States Embassy at Stamhoul (Turkey) and injured three persons.

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