DONATION BY MAORIS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1627, 21 October 1916, Page 4

DONATION BY MAORIS.

: TO SALVATION ARMY WAR ; funds! On Monday, October Bth., a deputation.* consisting of three Maori chiefs, representing the Rotoiti tribes, waited upon Captain V hitley, the officer in charge of the Salvation Army’s Institute at Rotorua, for the purpose —as one of them put it —of donating a trille toward the support of the Army’s grand work in the interests of the soldiers. The ceremony, which was a most, unique one, lasted an hour. One of the chiefs, in the course of his speech, which was given in Maori, said that the particular tribe he represented had in the past silently looked upon the grand work of the great Salvation Army among the soldiers in Rotorua* hut the time had now come for them to assist in a practical way. He hoped that their sympathy would not he judged by the smallness of the. amount contributed, as they wore helping the Government in many ways and giving through other channels. They had brought it as the “widow’s mite,”iAnd he trusted that the leaders of the Salvation Army would treat ifti as such. Another chief said that his people had begn watching the work of the Army, and,what had touched them was the fact -that in (heir help they had made no distinction between the Maori and the Fakeha. Everyone, irrespective of colour, had had the same privileges. After leaving a £lO note on the table, they remarked; “This is the first donation, but it will:not be the last!” They further promised the sum of £lO a month towards the Institute.