The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 Part 24

"M. Soyer proposes to make soup of the following proportions:--Leg of beef, four ounces; dripping fat, two ounces; flour, eight ounces; brown sugar, half an ounce; water, _two gallons_.

"These items are exclusive of the onions, a few turnip parings, celery-tops, and a little salt, which can hardly be considered under the head of food. The above proportions give less than three ounces of solid nutriment to each quart of soup a la Soyer. Of this its inventor is reported to have said to the Government 'that a bellyful once a day, with a biscuit, (we quote from the _Observer_,) will be more than sufficient to maintain the strength of a strong healthy man.'

"To bring this to the test. Organic chemistry proves to us that the excretae from the body of a healthy subject by the eliminatory organs must at least amount to twelve or fourteen ounces; and organic chemistry will not, we fear, bend to the most inspired receipts of the most miraculous cookery book, to supply the number of ounces without which the organic chemistry of the human body will no more go on than will the steam-engine without fuel. M. Soyer, supposing each meal of his soup for the poor to amount to a quart, supplies less than three ounces, or less than a quarter the required amount, and of that only one solitary half ounce of animal aliment, diluted, or rather dissolved in a bellyful of water. Bulk of water, the gastronomic may depend, will not make up for the deficiency of solid convertible aliment. No culinary digesting, or stewing, or boiling, can convert four ounces into twelve, unless, indeed, the laws of animal physiology can be unwritten, and some magical power be made to reside in the cap and ap.r.o.n of the cook for subst.i.tuting fluids in the place of solids, and _aqua pura_ in place of solids in the animal economy.

"It seems necessary to bring forward these facts, as M. Soyer's soup has inspired the public mind with much satisfaction--a satisfaction which, we venture to say, will never reach the public stomach.

"Marquises and lords and ladies may taste the meagre liquid, and p.r.o.nounce it agreeable to their gustative inclinations; but something more than an agreeable t.i.tilation of the palate is required to keep up that manufactory of blood, bone, and muscle which const.i.tutes the 'strong healthy man.'"

During M. Soyer's visit to Ireland, a Dublin chemist read, before the Royal Dublin Society, a paper upon the nutritive and pecuniary value of various kinds of cooked food. He had previously put himself in communication with M. Soyer, who showed him over his model kitchen, and allowed him to a.n.a.lyze his soups. The result of this a.n.a.lysis was remarkable, for he found that M. Soyer's dearest soup was the least nutritive, whilst his cheapest soup was the most so: a proportion which held through all the soups a.n.a.lyzed; their nutritive qualities being in an inverse ratio to their prices. In his calculation the chemist takes a child of four stones weight, as the average of persons who required food relief, and he found that--

160 gallons of Soyer's soup No. 2 would give sufficient nutriment to 213 such children for one day. Its price was 2-3/4d. the gallon.

160 gallons of Soyer's soup No. 4 would give sufficient nutriment to 420 such children for one day. Its price was 2-1/4d. the gallon.

160 gallons of his soup No. 5 would give sufficient nutriment to 385 such children for one day. Its price was 2-1/2d. the gallon.

160 gallons of his soup No. 6 (a fish soup) would give sufficient nutriment to 700 such children for one day. Its price was only 1-3/4d. the gallon.[249]

So that the famous cook of the Reform Club did not know the comparative nutritive qualities of his own soups.

But a still greater came on the scene in the person of Sir Henry Marsh, the Queen's physician, and long at the head of his profession in this country. He published a pamphlet of some ten pages, not for the purpose of finding fault with M. Soyer or his soups, but evidently to set the public right on the question of food, as they seemed to have taken up the idea that there resided some hidden power in the cook's receipt, distinct from the ingredients he used. Sir Henry thus deals with soup food:--

"A soft semi-liquid diet will maintain the life and health of children, and in times of scarcity will be sufficient for those adults whose occupations are sedentary, and is best suited to those who are reduced by and recovering from a wasting disease. Such persons stand in no need of the more abundant and more substantial nutriment which is essential to those who are daily engaged in occupations exacting much muscular labour. In the preparation and distribution of food, this I believe to be an important point, and one which should be held steadily in view.

For the labourer the food must be in part solid, requiring mastication and insalivation, and not rapid of digestion. Food, however nutritious, which is too quickly digested, is soon followed by a sense of hunger and emptiness, and consequent sinking and debility. Food of this description is unsuited to the labourer. It will not maintain strength, nor will it maintain health, and, if long persevered in, it will be followed by some one or other of the prevailing diseases which result immediately from deficient, imperfect, and impoverished blood."

Again:--

"Our attention must not be too exclusively directed to soups and other semi-liquid articles of food. These pa.s.s away too rapidly from the stomach, are swallowed too hastily, and violate a natural law in superseding the necessity of mastication, and a proper admixture with the salivary secretion. Restricted to such food the carnivora cannot maintain life; nor can man, being half carnivorous, if laboriously employed, long preserve health and strength on food of such character.... Food, to be at once sustaining to the labourer, and preventive of disease, must have bulk--must possess solidity--must not be rapidly digestible, and must contain, in varied proportions, all the staminal ingredients of nutriment."

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 depot 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 s.p.a.ce 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sembled; 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 cla.s.s 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 resume 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 ca.n.a.ls 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 n.o.ble 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.

Mr. f.a.gan, a commercial man of sound practical ability, who sat in the House of Commons for the County Wexford, put forward, in the famine period, a scheme for the reclamation of the waste lands.[254] It was mainly based upon the principle, that the men whose labour reclaimed those lands should have a beneficial interest in them. The wealth--the capital of the poor man, he said, lie in the health and strength with which G.o.d has endowed him, and if he be denied the means of employing this capital profitably, what matters it to him that the harvest is bountiful--that the corn stores are full? Mr. f.a.gan discusses several plans according to which Irish waste lands might be reclaimed. 1.

Individual exertion. This, in his opinion, would not answer, because it would be too slow, too isolated, to do the work in a broad, comprehensive manner, and within a reasonable time. 2. The next plan which he pa.s.ses in review is what he terms joint-stock enterprise. This he also rejects, as being expensive in management, and therefore unremunerative. 3. Reclamation by the Government, so commonly advocated, he also rejects, because he did not think such an undertaking within the legitimate sphere of the Government, and that it would be inconsistent with sound policy.

Having set aside these three modes of reclamation, he puts forward his own.

1. He was of opinion that the principle of _individual_ industry should be applied to the reclamation of the waste lands, and that a reasonable share of the fruits of the industry of the reclaimer should be secured to him. Where enlightened proprietors have done this, their wastes, he says, became fertile, and agrarian outrages were unknown. Give, in a word, the Irish peasant the same interest in reclaiming the waste at home, that he gets in reclaiming the waste abroad, and the same beneficial results will follow.

2. For the right working of this principle, the waste lands should be resumed by the State. This he regarded as an indispensable preliminary.

Pay the proprietors fully for them, let the ground be valued as it is valued for railways; paid for at its present, not its prospective value, and let it be vested in Commissioners. Lots of convenient size should be made, and sold, when reclaimed; but at no higher price than twenty-four years' purchase. The State should also empower the Commissioner to sell waste, in lots of not less than ten acres; ten acres to be the minimum of reclaimed lots also. Existing proprietors should have the option of reclaiming or selling; but in the former case security should be given that the work would be immediately proceeded with.

Mr. f.a.gan would ask no pecuniary aid from the Government to carry out his plan; he would meet the expenses of it by an agency tax, that is, a tax upon house and land agencies, and upon all agencies. In saying this he must have meant, that he would not ask money out of the Consolidated Fund; for he could not but have seen that in carrying it out by a tax of any kind, he would be doing so by the aid of the Government. The effect of Mr. f.a.gan's plan would have been, to create, to a certain extent, a peasant proprietary.

Mr. Poulett Scrope, then representing the borough of Stroud in Parliament, took much interest in Irish questions, more especially during the Famine; at which time he, in a series of letters addressed to Lord John Russell, put forward his views on the legislation which he considered necessary under the existing circ.u.mstances of this country.

Three Bills in his opinion, should have been at once proceeded with in Parliament; one to facilitate the sale of enc.u.mbered estates; one to improve the relations between landlord and tenant; and the third for commencing without delay the reclamation of the waste lands. This last he considered as of the most pressing urgency. Strange enough, that since Mr. Scrope wrote, laws have been pa.s.sed on the two former subjects, whilst the one considered by him the most necessary, still remains unlegislated on. His great object was, he said, to create employment, and to create it in the production of food, if possible.

Surely, says Mr. Scrope, if this can be created for the people at home, it is much better, for a thousand reasons, than to attempt to find it for them in America. "I cannot refrain," he writes, "from expressing astonishment at the degree to which the almost inexhaustible resources offered by the waste lands of Ireland for the production of employment of the wretched and unwillingly idle labourers of that country, have been overlooked and neglected, no less by statesmen than individual proprietors."[255]

From whatever cause, Irish landowners did not, to any considerable extent, take up, in earnest, the question of the reclamation of waste lands. Roused by the pressure of the times and the impending poor-rate, the majority of them looked, says Mr. Scrope, "for salvation" to other means--to the eviction of their numerous tenantry--the clearing of their estates from the seemingly superfluous population by emigration or ejectment. "Yet," he continues, "nothing can be more true or more capable of demonstration than the a.s.sertion that there is no real redundancy of population in Ireland. Nay, that even in the most distressed and apparently overcrowded districts, a wise and prudent management of their natural resources might find profitable employment for all, to the great advantage of the proprietors themselves, and the still greater benefit of the people and the public, which is so deeply interested in the result."[256]

The readers of these pages cannot forget that Mayo suffered as much as, if not more than, any other county, during the Famine; yet here was the state of its surface at the time of that dreadful visitation: entire area of the County Mayo, 1,300,000 acres; of these only 500,000 acres were under cultivation, 800,000 acres being unreclaimed; of which 800,000 acres, Griffith says, nearly 500,000 could be reclaimed with profit;--that is, just half the county was cultivated. The Dean of Killala gave the following evidence about the same county before the Devon Commission: _Quest. 73_. "Is there sufficient employment for the people in the cultivation of the arable land?" _Answ._ "No; it does not employ them half the year." _Quest. 74_. "But there would be employment for them in reclaiming the waste?" _Answ._ "Yes; more than ample, if there was encouragement given. Where I reside there are many thousands of acres waste, because it would not be let at a moderate rent." _Quest.

75_. "Is the land with you termed waste, capable of being made productive?" _Answ._ "Yes; every acre of it."

On this same question of the reclamation of Irish waste lands and redundant population, Commissary-General Hewetson, one of the princ.i.p.al a.s.sistants of Sir Randal Routh, writes, in the height of the Famine: "The transition from potatoes to grain requires tillage in the proportion of _three_ to _one_. It is useless, then, to talk of emigration, _when so much extra labour_ is indispensable to supply the extra food. Let that labour be first applied, and it will be seen whether there is any surplus population. _If the waste lands are taken into cultivation_, and industrious habits established, it is very doubtful whether there will be any surplus population, _or even_ whether it would be equal to the demand." "Providence," he adds, "has given everything needful, and nothing is wanting but industry to apply it."

"Yes!" to use the words of Mr. Scrope, "there are two things more wanted--namely, that Irish industry should have leave to apply itself to the improvement of the Irish soil, and be a.s.sured of reaping the undivided fruits of such application."[257]

From causes which can be only guessed at, there seems to have been always a pa.s.sive but most influential opposition to the reclamation of the waste lands of Ireland. Its opponents never met the question in the field of logical argument, yet, somehow, they had power enough to prevent its being carried into effect. When Lord John Russell proposed the million grant to begin the work, Sir Robert Peel said he thought some more useful employment could be found for that sum, but he did not even hint at what it was. A writer, who published in 1847 a work on Ireland "Historical and Statistical," thus deals with the reclamation question: "The Irish waste lands being of considerable extent have long attracted the notice of speculators and improvers. They are about to receive the attention of her Majesty's Government, and a sum of one million is promised to the Irish landlords as an aid towards their reclamation. But there is much room to doubt the policy of such a proceeding at any time, and especially at the present time."[258] Here is a pretty decided opinion against reclamation, but there is no reason whatever vouchsafed for it.

On the other hand those who were favourable to the reclamation of our waste lands were rich in facts and arguments. In the Parliamentary Session of 1835, a Committee of the House of Commons on public works reported that "no experiment was necessary to persuade any scientific man of the possibility of carrying into effect the reclamation of bogs." Nor is this strongly expressed opinion to be wondered at, founded, as it was, upon such evidence as the following:--

Mr. Griffith deposed that--

"The mountain bog of the south of Ireland--the moory bog--varies in depth from nine inches to three feet, below which there is a clayey or sandy subsoil. On the average, about 4 per statute acre is required to bring it from a state of nature to one of cultivation, and then it will fetch a rent of from 5s. to 10s. per English acre."

Again:

"1 4s. an acre is the highest estimate for the draining of this land in covered drains; the remainder of the expense consists in the trenching up the surface, turning up the subsoil, and mixing it with the bog; no manure is wanted, a portion of the bog being burned for that purpose."

With regard to deep bogs, his testimony was as follows:

"The expense of reclaiming deep bogs per acre may be estimated thus:--Drainage of an English acre, in the most perfect way, about 1 4s., which is about 40s. the Irish acre; that includes the under drain: the levelling and digging comes to about 1 10s.; and afterwards the claying comes to about 6 12s. per statute acre."

Finally, he said:

"The reclamation of mountain land is very profitable, and easily effected; but the reclamation of deep bog land is attended with a much greater expense, and requires both care and judgment. But both are certainly reclaimable, and would give a successful return when judiciously treated."

Mr. Featherstone, a practical and successful farmer, told the Committee that he had reclaimed the worst sort of bog land for 13 an acre, and some cushbog land for, 6 an acre: the former, when reclaimed, was worth 1 an acre, and the latter 2 an acre. "It took me," he said, "13 an acre to reclaim the first red bog I tried my hand on: and it would take to reclaim, on the average, the red bog of Ireland, 10 an acre."