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Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 846, 18 June 1910, Page 5

Very few people know, said Mr. Kaihau at tho Maori conference at Waahi oil-Thursday, that by the Constitution Act Queen Victoria's Parliament voted an annual grant of £7000, to bo spent on such objects as would conduce to tho welfare of tho aboriginal race in Now Zealand. Over and over again ho had asked for information regarding the expenditure of this yearly subsidy, but he had only received vague and unsatisfactory replies to tho effect that . moneys were expended on the. visits of ■Ministers to Native meetings, tho payment of Maori doctors, old ago pensions to Natives, and rations to indigent Maoris. This expenditure, in his opinion, was wrong, and not in accordance with the spirit of tho grant. Had it been expended on the welfare of the peopln as a whole, no one could have grumbled,, whereas they had good cause to complain, jn that no benefit accrued except to tho very few.