ENCLOSURE NO. 1.
REPUBLICA PORTUGUESA
Governor da Provincia de Macau
14th August, 1927.
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Dear Sir Cecil,
I have just received by a private message from Lisbon
in the last mail which states that the Minister for Foreign Affairs in Lisbon in accordance with the telegrams received
from myself, solicited the Portuguese Ambassador to the
Court of St. James to renew, with every endeavour, his
requests of His Majesty's Government to permit Hong Kong
to supply, as a minimum 120 chests of Indian opium per
annum for manufacture at Macau.
I am informed that it is hoped that our efforts to
secure the necessary authority may be successful, due in no
small measure to Your Excellency's kind efforts to help us.
With regard to this matter I am not in doubt in any way
and am fully conscious of the great assistance rendered by Your Excellency to our cause, which resulted in your being
able to so graciously supply us with the 10 chests we received
from Your Government.
We are entering upon the second month of the official
administration of opium supplies, however, and I have
ascertained with the greatest strictness that the sale of
opium has proceeded with the utmost care and the manufacture
of prepared opium has proceeded as slowly as possible, and
I am restricting the quantity of Indian opium to 9 or 10 chests per month against a population at Macau, as Your Excellency can ascertain, of over 150,000 persons as revealed
His Excellency,
The Governor
Hong Kong.