Continuing Efforts To Establish The Company
The efforts to establish the company as a friendly society or as a joint stock company had foundered. The effort to collect the signatures of the shareholders was abandoned in 1848. (Later investigation showed that the required number of signatures had been reached, but the company failed to appreciate the difference between the number of shares and the number of shareholders.)
In the meantime, in April 1848, a new petition to have the NLC registered as a friendly society was produced with about 6 million signatures, but an investigating committee in Parliament found that it contained not quite 2 million bonafide signatures. This came as a shock to O’Connor since his lieutenants had not let him know that all was not in order.
O'Connor introduced a bill to legalise the NLC, with a second reading reading set for 12 June 1848. This prompted some investigation, led by Sir Benjamin Hall, which quickly turned up the fact that O'Connor was registered as the owner of all the estates, and of the associated bank. This prompted the House of Commons to set up a Select Committee to look into the NLC on 24 May 1848.
Read more about this topic: National Land Company
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