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 politics. "Occasionally," wrote Cooper, "I called on O'Connor and conversed with him; and he invariably expounded his Land Scheme to me and wished me to become one of its advocates. But I told him that I could not, and I begged him to give the Scheme up, for I felt sure it would bring ruin and disappointment upon himself and all who entered into it." At first the patrician kept his temper at the workman's presumption; but he soon grew haughty, and denied Cooper his door. Thus the ill-assorted pair drifted back into coolness, and from coolness to the "real and fierce quarrel" which finally ended Cooper's relations to O'Connor and Chartism.

The Land Scheme still required further advertisement if it were to hold its own against the bitter hostility and the widespread indifference which it encountered. The Land Society underwent a further reconstitution; it was "provisionally registered" in October 1846, and early in 1847 reached its final status as the National Land Company. Its capital was to be £130,000 in 100,000 shares. Branches were to be set up all over the country, and a Land Bank was to be started to facilitate its operations. But O'Connor was to be the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Land Company with absolute control over its operations. Its object was to buy estates in the open market and divide them up into small holdings. All persons anxious to become landed proprietors were to buy as many shares in the Company as they could afford. To encourage the poorest not to despair of owning his plot of ground, a low minimum of weekly subscription for shares was fixed, and a single share could be purchased for 26s. The proprietor of two shares might hope to receive a house, two acres of land, and an advance of £15 to stock it. The holder of one share had a claim on one acre and an advance of £7:10s. The order in which the share-holder was to participate in these benefits was to be determined by ballot. As soon as the fortune of the lottery gave the lucky investor his chance, it was the Company's business to find the land, prepare it for cultivation, erect a suitable cottage, and advance the loans which would start the new proprietor in his enterprise. In return the tenant had simply to pay to the Company a rent of 5 per cent per annum. With this rent the Company was to go on buying and equipping more land, until every subscriber to its capital was happily established on his little farm.