INFORMATION RELATING TO AORICULTURAI. ECONOMY IN GENERAL 79 



various payments falling due during the war and in the year after the war, 

 if he have through the war suffered losses which have lessened the total 

 value of his farm. All these i)rovisions apply whatever be the form of 

 a contract — lease for rent or for half or other share of profits — , and even 

 to leases of fishing and shooting rights and to every concession to indivi- 

 duals, or fishing or sporting societies, in rivers, streams, canals, etc. 



* 

 * * 



2. THIiDlvP.ARTMKNTOF AGKICULTUR.AL LAHOUR AT TH1<; MIXLSTRV OF .AGRI- 

 CULTURE. — Announcements made bj' M. Henry Girard, chief assistant of tliis 

 department, at the annual general meetinsi of the .Soct<;/<J rf'Ec(1»(^»^/r .Sucm/i-, reproduced 

 in La Refnrmc Sociale. i to is .September 191 7, pp. 192 to igG. 



By a decree of 3 January 1917 the then Minister of Agriculture, M. Cle- 

 mentel, formed a department for the supply and supervision of agriculttiral 

 labour. His accomplishment was continued and developed bj' M. Fer- 

 nand David. We will outline the orgauization of the new department, its 

 activity and the principles on which it rests. 



I. The Organization of the Department. — The organization tends to a 

 decentralization of labour, which aims at hastening the progress of bu- 

 siness and allowing it to be transacted locall}^ where it is understood and 

 can be given its rightful importance. There is a central organization with 

 agencies in th? departments. 



The central organization has three sections. 



The first of these has charge of relations with the military authority 

 from whom it must obtain, individuall}^ or collectively, that assistance 

 of mobilized men and even of prisoners of war which is indispensable to 

 the works of agrictdture and to subsidiary' industries. 



In vaew of the impossibility' of restoring to agriculture all the labour 

 wich it lacks it has been necessary to form a second section which has the 

 duty of collecting from ever>- possible place available labour, whether that 

 of the iineniplo^'ed, of refugees, of the physically unfit or of aliens. 



Finally a third section detaches and distributes the oldest soldiers 

 whose employment on agriculture is allowed by the Ministry of War. This 

 section also sets on foot the investigations which become necessary' when 

 such a detachment is made on insufficient pretexts. 



The head of the department co-ordinates the three sections. Side by 

 side with him a department for technical research connected with agricul- 

 tural labour is at work; and a bi-monthly bulletin. La Main-d'ceiivre agri- 

 cole, is issued. Five thousand copies of each issue of this journal appear, 

 and they are sent to all who ought to have general ideas as to the labour 

 supply and know the resolutions and publications relative to it. The cen- 

 tral organization and the agencies in the departments are thus permanently 

 connected. 



The latter are the commissions of agricultural labour. Each has the 

 prefet as chairman and consists otherwise of the director of the agricultural 



