The Transformation of Agricultural Labour Supply in Nineteenth-Century France

IN a recent article in this Review, Roger Price investigates the "onset of labour shortage" in French agriculture in the mid-nineteenth century.1 His main source of evidence regarding the existence and causes of the shortage consists of two inquiries conducted by government commissions in i866 and I870, respectively. This comment will review, and if possible clarify, the issues raised by Price. It will attempt to show that while the economic conditions of rural labour supply did indeed change around the middle of the century, neither the term "shortage" nor Price's analysis does them full justice. A significant part of the problem arises, it will also be argued, from uncritical use of evidence from one of the enqudtes.2 Price's argument, in brief, is that the years of the Second Empire witnessed a strong deterioration in agricultural profitability, at least in the commercial sector. Decades of easy profits gave way to a crisis. Although the period was one of movement towards freer international trade, the root of the problem can be traced to the markets for labour rather than those for output. Increasingly inadequate supplies of labour resulted, in turn, from what we can sum up as effects of modernization, a process which first drew substantial numbers of rural workers into urban employment and then aggravated the problem by lowering the rate of natural increase of the rural population itself. Although timing is not precisely specified in Price's argument, it may be inferred that the changes, which got under way in the i 850s, had their main impact on profit and rental incomes in the i 86os after agricultural prices stabilized. Landlords and operators of large commercial farms could respond to labour shortages in a number of ways. The former could reduce their direct involvement in farming, breaking up large holdings into a number of small tenancies or selling off the land piecemeal. The latter could modify their choice of techniques, their product mix, or both. It is somewhat difficult to tell whether, in Price's view, progressive responses outweighed passive ones or the other way round. Did regional disparities widen or narrow ? Was growth stimulated or slowed ? We are presented with alternative viewpoints and, presumably, left to choose. Before considering the nature of Price's evidence, it is necessary to set out a few specific points of clear-cut difference with him, because these matters have a direct bearing on the issues raised. First, while it is clear that the unfavourable