I should very much like to become a member of the Aborigines Protection Society. I am specially moved to ask this favour at the present moment, because I am deeply conscious of the immense practical advantage derived from the help of the Society by the Maori Chiefs recently visiting this country. You not only procured for them an amount of personal kindness and hospitality for which they will be ever grateful and which must produce the most beneficial effect on the relations between the British and Maori races; but you enabled them to place their grievances before Her Majesty’s government in a far more effective manner than would have been possible without your assistance.