appear that the fall in rice exports would lead to a lessening of hunger in the countryside. Not at all, he asserted. In order to pay their taxes, the peasant-farmers had to sell three or four times more rice to raise money to pay their taxes. Before 1930, fifteen work days were necessary to get enough money to pay the head taxes; two to three months’ work would not suffice during the crisis years. Alongside famine in northern Annam, food shortages appeared even in the richest provinces of Cochinchina, as with with Bac Lieu. The price of land dropped, with indebted farmers selling to big landowners. Land concentration increased. Likewise, currency circulation dropped significantly, 35 percent down on the 19205 (Nguyen Khac Vien 1975, 71772). Footloose and desperate migrams, including scavengers from the troubled Nghe-Tinh region, also began crossing into Laos across difficult mountain passes and trails, some entering Cambodia as well, all in search oflivelihoods (Gunn 1988, 44—45).
As Harrison (1939, 54) adds, in contrast to the south, where the problem was one of tenancy and landlordism, in Ngte-Tinh, overpopulation deprived the masses of land. Landholding in northern Annam was small (about 0.2 ha), but many peasants (up to 90 percent in some areas) had no land at all. Besides vulnerability to falling rice prices, natural and manmade disasters hit the region after 1929, with disastrous floods in 1930 followed by drought. Conditions were abysmal in both country and town in the early 1930s. Even the poor were taxed 20 to 35 percent of their meager incomes. We may well ask what specific economic pressures were faced by the rebellious peasant farmers of Annam in 1930731. As confirmed by a colonial report of late 1930, the rice harvest in Ngte-Tinh was bad, “almost all mediocre." Rice, it was reported, suffered from
“meteorological irregularities" for the duration of the trimester. The drougtt of October had already impacted negatively on the preceding trimester. The harvest was particularly deficient in the northern part of the province as well as rice culture on rays. The harvest was acceptable only on the very low-lying rice fields situated proximate to sources of water for irrigation. But, the report continued, despite the bad harvest, the price of rice (in the marketplace) remained low because of imports by rail and sea (presumably arriving from Cochinchina).1
Falling Rice Price More often titan not, famines are foreshadowed by a rise in grain prices, forcing consumption downward to more market levels and obliging consumers to save, forgo, or starve (see Jordan 1996, 49). This, we will see, was the case with the Great Famine of 1944—45. But economic
depressions, as with the Great Depression, are also accompanied by falling commodity prices as global markets slump. This was the pattern in Cochinchina, most closely linked with regional and global markets, althougJi peasant farmers in Annam would also experience a less steep decline in prices. While, as mentioned, local famine did occur in the context of the NgheTinh rebellions, it was not apparently the general condition; neither was it generalized. It would appear that distribution networks held up in all but the most isolated areas, just as the ability of the state to intervene in the market with imported supplies created a new safety equilibrium