You 155243
100
*issued to Your Excellency on the 6th. May, are unsatis-
#-factory".
In my Confidential Despatch of the 13th. of last June I
have already forwarded to Your Lordship the report of the
previous debate on the same subject in which an identical
attitude was taken up by the Unofficial Members.
11.
As the result of negotiations
with the Opium Farmer, conducted since my Despatch of 13th...
June last was written, to ascertain the amount of compensa-
-tion he would claim if Divans were abolished, he has
intimated that his maximum loss would be $60,000 per
mensen, viz.:- $720,000 per annum, approximately the same
as Mr. Clementi's estimate. This amount, viz.:- $720,000
per annum, the Opium Farmer claims from Government if all
Divans are abolished, but he proposes that at the end of
6 months the Government should examine his books, and he
should refund any part of this sum which it could be shown
had not actually been lost by him. In other words that he
should be repaid his actual loss and no more. If only a
certain proportion of the Divans were closed the sum of
$60,000 per mensem would be reduced in a like proportion.
This proposal was considered in Executive Council on
August 18th. when it was unanimously advised that in such
circumstances