his machinery will be. The Convention will be the representative body of Chartism, the council its digestive organ, the lecturers its arteries, the people the heart, the Morning Star (the paper to be) its tongue, the committee of review its eyes, £2000 a year its food, and Universal Suffrage its only task.
That this scheme was put forward in all seriousness is indicated both by the general tenour of O'Connor's career and by the fact that it was published in the Northern Star,[1] a few days before the great delegate meeting at Manchester which was convened for the purpose of establishing a permanent organisation of the Chartist forces. It was apparently brought under review by that meeting. O'Connor's scheme would have established more effectively that quasi-Tammany organisation which he succeeded in establishing to a lesser degree through the Northern Star. As proprietor of the two papers O'Connor would have turned the Chartist movement into an extensive machine for booming his publications. He would have had lectures, delegates, council, and committee in his pocket. He would have debased the pure currency of Lovett, O'Brien, and Benbow by this scheme, just as he did by the Land Scheme later on.
Along with these various plans of reorganisation came the revival of local bodies which had been put out of action by the débâcle of 1839. We read in April of the formation of a Metropolitan Charter Union of which Hetherington was the leading figure.[2] It proposes the union of all Radical, Charter and similar associations into one great body, and hopes to proceed by the circulation of tracts and a penny weekly publication, by founding co-operative stores, coffee-houses, and reading-rooms. Its objects were "to keep the principles of the People's Charter prominently before the public, by means of lectures, discussions and the distribution of tracts on sound political principles, or by any other legal means which may be deemed advisable. To promote peace, union and concord amongst all the classes of people." … "To avoid all private and secret proceedings, to deprecate all violent and inflammatory language and all concealment of the views and objects of this Association." This last suggestion was a very significant comment upon the recent events. Most of the names of the Committee of this society are new. It decided, perhaps for
