were based. His cry was now, "The Charter and the Land"; and he extolled the "Real Chartism which is the Land as a free market for labour, and the Vote to protect it."[1] From the moment he had made the Land Scheme his own, he could talk of nothing else.
Despite the enthusiasm of O'Connor, both the Chartist cause and the Land Scheme still languished. Even in the Birmingham Convention the warning note was feebly sounded. In the Manchester Convention of 1844, held, unlike that of 1843, at its proper time in April, the final touches were given to the reorganisation scheme. The organisation was henceforth to be the "National Charter Association of Great Britain," and its object was "to secure the enactment of the People's Charter by peaceful legal and constitutional means." Membership was proved by possession of a card, which cost 3d. and was to be renewed annually. There was also a subscription of a penny a week to the General Fund. There was an Executive Committee of five, elected by the annual Convention, and a General Council, chosen by the Executive. The old officers were renewed, and O'Connor was unanimously re-elected by the grateful Convention.[2] But the resolution of the Convention, not to proceed with the Land Scheme on account of the difficulty involved in enrolment,[3] must have brought him face to face with the insecurity of his position. Most of the delegates declared in favour of separating the Land Scheme from the agitation for the Charter.
The apathy, discernible in 1844, was somewhat lessened in 1845. At the National Convention, held on April 21 at London, there was more feeling in favour of the Land Scheme, though there were still good Chartists who were afraid lest it should swallow up Chartism. A committee drew up a scheme for a "Chartist Land Co-operative Society," whose shares of £2:10s. each could be purchased in weekly instalments of 3d. and upwards, and whose design was to "show the working classes the value of land as a means of making them independent of the grinding capitalist," and "the necessity of securing the speedy enactment of the People's Charter, which would do for them nationally what this society proposes to do for them sectionally."[4] But up to the end of the year the net subscriptions available for the purchase of land
