CO129-508-7 Opium on Macao market 10-1-1928 - 9-11-1928 — Page 25

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Farm any longer.

The fact remains that to all

intents and purposes he was the Farmer, and he

admitted this fact in the witness box this Spring

when he was the defendant in a libel action brought

against him by one of the Macau officials in charge

of Opium.

The conditions on which he was awarded the

lest contract are not really known as the Macau

Government when challenged on the point by an

unofficial member of the Leal Senado, refused on

the 1st October 1924 to produce the contract or give

ny details about the farm whatsoever. In 1925

however in the Budget speech it was officially

stated that the conditions were at that time and for

the ensuing period $7,000 per chest payable by the

Farmer to the Government for opium obtained direct from India, end $3,000 per chest for opium of Indian

origin obtained from elsewhere. It will be showm

hereafter that this ste tement was not correct.

2. The Books. The Books examined purported to

The

be the cash books in Chinese for the three years

1924 to 1925, 1925 to 1926 and 1926 to 1927.

entries especially on the debit side, are not contemporaneous with the payments made and recorded under the dates, for instance three separate transactions in opium are recorded together under the date 11th February 1926, although the opium reached

Macau in 1925 and 1924. There are other entries which

show that the items have not been entered in the

proper sequence. It appears however that receipts for opium sold are in regular sequence and copied from a daily sales book, but here it must be noted that a

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