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154941/10F.
FOREIGN OFFICE, S.W.1.
December 2nd,
1919. 238
Sir,
I am directed by Earl Curzon of Kedleston to acknowledge receipt of your letter R & S. 6727 of the 24th ultimo, and to inform you in reply that His Majesty "a Representatives at Paris and Tokio have been instructed
to propose to the French and Japanese Governments the adop- tion of a fixed rate of Rs.4,000 per chest for the sale of opium under the contemplated agreements.
With regard to the proposal that the Government of Portugal should now be invited to enter into an agreement on similar lines, I am to state that Lord Curzon is quite prepared to initiate negotiations to that end. At the same time, I am to suggest that the allowance of five hundred chests a year laid down in 1913 is somewhat excessive, and that the present occasion might offer a favourable opportunity for proposing a reduction. In 1913 when the exist- ing arrangements with regard to Macao were made, the local requirements of Hongkong, with a Chinese population of four hundred and fifty thousand as compared with a total population for Macao of ninety thousand, were fixed at five hundred and Under Secretary of State,
INDIA OFFICE.
forty
1
A
C