MISCELIvANEOUS INFORMATION RELATING TO AGRICULTURAL 

 ECONOMY IN GENERAL IN YARIOUvS COUNTRIES. 



ITALY. 



I. RECENT :MEASL'RES AS TO AGRICUI,TUR.\Iy CONTRACTS. — GazzeUa Uffidale 

 del Regno d'ltalia, No. 261, Rome, 7 November igi6. 



B}' a decree of the Lieutenant General of the kingdom, dated 2 Nov- 

 ember 1916, No. 1480, important steps have been taken as to agricultural 

 contracts, always with the idea of helping agriculturists to overcome the 

 difficulties of the present time. The principal provisions are as follows : 



Agricultural contracts in writing or by word of mouth, whether in- 

 volving some system of partnership or a fixed wage, are not to have force 

 until the year after that in which peace is made. The Arbitration Commis- 

 sion of mandamento, of which there is question in Article 11 of the decree 

 of 30 Ma}' 1916, No. 645 (i), can in every case grant, at the request of the 

 cultivator, the wage-earner or the small farmer and on recognized and se- 

 rious grounds, that the contract cease to bind at the end of the current 

 agricultural year. 



The widow, children, parents or other heirs of the cultivator or small 

 farmer who dies in the war, or as a consequence of the war, can, if they 

 be part of his family employed in cultivating his holding, apply to the 

 Arbitration Commission of mandamento for the delay of the contract as 

 stated above, if they show proof that they are able to execute the clauses 

 of such contract. 



In contracts involving the principle of partnership, where this impHes 

 only a sharing of produce between the landowner and the cultivator, the 

 former or his manager, or the cultivator or his representatives, may in the 

 cases which have been mentioned bring onto the holding extra labourers, 

 corresponding in number to those menAers of the cultivator's family who 

 are with the colours or have been killed or disabled in the war, and the 

 resultant expense shall be shared in the proportion fixed for the sharing 

 of produce. 



In the case of small farmers' contracts drawn up before 24 May 1915, 

 if the Arbitration Commission of mandamento recogniz^, at the instance 

 of the lessee, that the insufficient cultivation of the leasehold, by reason 



(i) See Tniernatinuol Reiicu) of Aa.yicuUuyal Economics, October i')i6, iiagc. 119. 



