Sir Henry Marsh, said one of the morning journals, did not attack M. Soyer, but he demolished the soup kitchen as effectively as if he did.
As soon as M. Soyer's model soup depôt was completed, he resolved to open it for public inspection with a good deal of ceremony. On the 5th of April, therefore, the opening day, the space in front of the Royal Barracks presented a very animated scene; flags floated gaily in the breeze; the rich dresses of ladies of birth and fashion contrasted pleasingly with the costly and superb military uniforms among which they moved; and M. Soyer was all politeness in explaining to his distinguished visitors the arrangements and perfections of his soup kitchen. In a famine-stricken land, the good taste of this exhibition was doubtful enough: at any rate it was criticised with no sparing hand.
When I got a card of invitation, writes one, I thought I was to see M. Soyer's peculiar appliances for making soup for the poor; but no—it was a "gala day:" drums beating, flags flying. Then the writer grows political, and says bitterly, that he "envied not the Union flag the position it occupied as it flaunted in triumph from the chimney top of the soup kitchen; it was its natural and most meet position; the rule of which it is the emblem has brought our country to require soup kitchens,—and no more fitting ornament could adorn their tops." All the parade he could, he says, have borne, but what he considered indefensible was the exhibition of some hundreds of Irish beggars "to demonstrate what ravening hunger will make the image of God submit to."[250] "His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant was there," wrote the Evening Packet (a Conservative journal); "the ladies Ponsonby and many other fair and delicate creatures assembled; there were earls and countesses, and lords and generals, and colonels and commissioners, and clergymen and doctors; for, reader, it was a gala day,—a grand gala." The provincial press dealt with the proceedings in the same spirit.
Like many other great men, M. Soyer, in a short time, found that Ireland was his "difficulty;" so he resolved, somewhat suddenly, it would appear, to return to the more congenial atmosphere of the Reform Club. His resolution was thus announced in one of the Dublin morning journals: "SOYER'S MODEL KITCHEN.—By the special desire of several charitable ladies, who have visited and paid particular attention to the working of the model kitchen, it will be opened again on Saturday next, from two to six, on which day those ladies, under the direction of Mrs. L——, will attend and serve the poor. The admission for the view on that day will be five shillings each, to be distributed by the Lord Mayor in charity; after which the kitchen will be closed, M. Soyer being obliged to leave for the Reform Club, London." This smacked very much of a "positively last appearance." Referring to it, a Dublin journal exclaims—"Five shillings each to see paupers feed! Five shillings each to watch the burning blush of shame chasing pallidness from poverty's wan cheek! Five shillings each! When the animals in the Zoological Gardens can be inspected at feeding time for sixpence!"[251]
A few gentlemen gave M. Soyer a dinner and a snuff box before he left, and so his Irish mission was brought to a close; but his name was not forgotten, for Sawyer's soup was long a standing joke with a certain class of the Dublin people. Had the word come into popular use at the time, there is little doubt that M. Soyer's undertaking to feed the starving Irish would have been called a fiasco.[252]
Philanthropists of a stamp different from M. Soyer brought forward schemes for the good of Ireland at this time. They related chiefly to the reclamation of her waste lands. At the opening of Parliament in 1847, Lord John Russell, as we have seen, proposed to introduce a Bill on this subject, one million being the first grant to be made for the purpose. The plan on which the reclamation was to be carried out is given in the resumè of Lord John's speech at the opening of the session. It was the very best of the Premier's measures for the permanent improvement of Ireland; but, according to Mr. D'Israeli, it was faintly proposed, and finally abandoned in deference to the expressed opinion of Sir Robert Peel, who, at the time, governed from the Opposition benches.
This question of the reclamation of our waste lands had been often before Parliament and the public previous to 1847. The committee relating to the poor of Ireland in the year 1830 refer in their report to no less than twelve preceding sessions in which the importance of reclaiming the Irish wastes was strongly recommended, but the publication of the "Industrial Resources of Ireland," by Dr. (now Sir Robert) Kane, a short time before the Famine, directed public attention anew to the subject.
The area of Ireland is 20,808,271 statute acres. Of these it is commonly admitted that 18,600,000, or thereabouts, are susceptible of cultivation. In 1845, somewhat over 13,000,000 of acres were in cultivation, whilst nearly 5,000,000, which could be brought under culture, lay barren. Referring to the estimate of those writers who held that Ireland contained 4,600,000 acres of waste, which could be made arable, Dr. Kane said he did not think the estimate too high; and this opinion was quoted approvingly by Lord John Russell.[253]
But the question might still remain,—could those four and a-half millions of acres he profitably cultivated? Would their cultivation give remunerative interest on the capital expended? That is the purely commercial view of the matter; but there is another which should not be overlooked: Would it not be wise policy to increase the resources of a country,—to increase its area of cultivation,—to extend the means of employing and feeding its population, even though the work did not actually make a very remunerative commercial return? English capital has gone to make canals and railroads and harbours, and open mines for the antipodes, often with little or no return; not unfrequently with total loss; surely as much risk ought to be taken for home improvements, in which patriotism should come to the aid of commercial enterprise. The Chinese have, after their own fashion, devoted themselves to this kind of improvement for centuries; so have the enlightened Dutch, the most recent example of which is that noble engineering achievement, the draining of the lake of Haarlem; and although the sale of the drained land did not recoup the Government for the outlay, yet they felt the work was a great national benefit, inasmuch as it added forty-three thousand acres to the arable soil of Holland. So pleased indeed are they with the result, that they have at present under consideration another undertaking of the same kind, and of far greater extent, namely, the draining of the Zuider Zee.
It would seem, then, to be a question well worthy the consideration of statesmen, whether or not, in the reclamation of wastes, it would be the true and enlightened policy to act upon the commercial idea alone.