31
80049/27
repaying the loan or for carrying on that Colony's
monopoly. You said that Fersia had been the normal
source of opium supplies for Macao for some time
past and that, so far as you knew, the kacao
Government had no difficulty in getting supplies
from Persia: (your telegram to me, dated 30th June,
11
1927). His Majesty's Government fully appreciated
the efforts of the Portuguese Government to
introduce measures of control at Macao to give
effect to the obligations assumed under the Opium
Agreement of 1925 and had every sympathy with
the desire of the Portuguese authorities to make
these measures as effective as possible. But there
could be no direct supply from India to macao,
because it is the definite policy of the Government
of India to extinguish the export of Indian opium
to the Far East in the year 1936 by means of
progressive annual reductions and to distribute,
pending final extinction, the reduced annual totals
of exports only to the eight countries to which
export is at present allowed under direct sale,
namely, ilong Xong, Malaya, Ceylon, North Borneo,
Sarawak, Siam, Indo-China, and the Netherlands East
Indies. Nor could there be any supply of opium
}
to Macao from India via Hong Kong, because the
provisions of Article 6 of the Opium Agreement of
1925, to which both Portugal and Great Britain
are parties, bind the signatories not to permit
the export of opium from countries into which it is
(your Confidential
imported for smoking purposes:
11 NO. 6.30049,
رو
270 30.417
.3
despatches
25