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requested that authority might be conveyed to you to
let Macao have these 10 chests a month. Now Article VI
of the Geneva Opium Agreement prohibits in terms the
exportation of opium from any territory into which it is
introduced for the purposes of being smoked.
The Portuguese Minister's request would involve
a repeated infraction of this Article a course which
His Majesty's Government would not be prepared to
authorise.
The supplies already granted to Macao by you are on a different footing. It is possible to defend them on the lines that the action of your Government was in accord with the spirit of the Agreement, since it was designed to assist Macao to set up the system of Government monopoly. His Majesty's Government are prepared to take this line.
As regards the possibility of Macao obtaining supplies direct from India see my telegram of 30th June. As indicated therein there is no prospect that the Government of India will reconsider its decision
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