Settling The Estates
Money came in at a remarkable rate, considering the poverty of most of the subscribers. The subscribers who got the land were chosen by ballot. They were to pay back with interest and ultimately all subscribers would be settled. The Labourer magazine was started by O’Connor and Jones to promote the project. Soon hundreds of households were settled, and an outcry of opposition went up from hostile Chartists, the press, the Poor Law authorities who feared the weight of their failures, and other quarters.
Among the working men the prestige of Chartism was growing again. The land plan offered more immediate promise of help than the Charter with its long-range promises. O’Connor’s carelessness and inaccuracy with financial matters, as well as the free hand he had in purchasing land as he saw fit, were inherent weaknesses in the administration of the scheme. The plan would have soon collapsed had he not been an able promoter.
In the same year O’Connor ran for parliament again and won over Hobhouse for the Nottingham seat. When he had taken his seat he proposed in The Labourer that the government take over the National Land Company to resettle the English peasantry on a large scale. His opposition within the Chartist movement accused him of being “no longer a ‘five point’ Chartist but a ‘five acre’ Chartist.” O’Connor replied to his critics in an appearance before a mass meeting of his partisans in Manchester. His followers demonstrated at this meeting how devoted they were to him.
Read more about this topic: National Land Company
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