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violent campaign against the Régie and the Government,
which the local authorities, together with the intervention
of the tribunals, succeeded in suppressing.
Your Excellency will easily understand that as
this concessionaire had in his possession all the documents
which were indispensable to the enquiry to which Your
Excellency refers and as the Colony had not, up to that
time, organised any effective control for the suppression
of abuses, there occurred that which I had anticipated in
my Mote or the 27th April. There was no substantial
result from the enquiry, and any other enquiries which
may be instituted in connection with the period previous
to the Régie are destined to a similar negative result.
The Portuguese Government is in possession at the
present time of all that is necessary to enable it to
assume responsibility for the working of the Régie, which
it has instituted for the precise purpose of putting an
end to abuses, which it regrets, and manoeuvres which it
has no intention of tolerating.
It has informed the Portuguese representative on
the opium advisory Committee and the delegates to the
League of Nations Assembly of what took place during the
régime previous to June 1927 and of what is happening now.
And i have no doubt that this attitude of frank loyalty
and honest procedure will receive from the League of
Nations the appreciation which is due to it.
The more is this so as it was not without having
to overcome great difficulties and suffer heavy losses
that the Colony of Macau succeeded in instituting the
Opium Régie and making it work. The Portuguese Government
was expecting to meet with the same benevolence and
goodwill on the part of the Government of India which the
latter had shown to the concessionaire almost up to the
endt of his contract and which it had maintained with the
L
British /
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