This decade, however, witnessed some {16} definite political action. In 1854 Johnston, the Conservative Opposition leader in the Nova Scotia legislature, presented a motion in these terms: 'Resolved, That the union or confederation of the British Provinces on just principles, while calculated to perpetuate their connection with the parent state, will promote their advancement, increase their strength and influence, and elevate their position.' This resolution, academic in form, but supported in a well-balanced and powerful speech by the mover, drew from Joseph Howe, then leader of the government, his preference for representation in the British House of Commons. The attitude of Howe, then and afterwards, should be examined with impartiality, because he and other British Americans, as well as some English statesmen, were the victims of the honest doubts which command respect but block the way to action. Johnston, as prime minister in 1857, pressed his policy upon the Imperial government, but met with no response. When Howe returned to power, he carried a motion which declared for a conference to promote either the union of the Maritime Provinces or a general federation, but expressing no preference for either. Howe never was pledged to federation as his fixed {17} policy, as so many persons have asserted. He made various declarations which betokened uncertainty. So little had the efforts put forth down to 1861 impressed the official mind that Lord Mulgrave, the governor of Nova Scotia, in forwarding Howe's motion to the Colonial Office, wrote: 'As an abstract question the union of the North American colonies has long received the support of many persons of weight and ability, but so far as I am aware, no political mode of carrying out this union has ever been proposed.' [Illustration: Sir Alexander T. Galt. From a photograph by Topley.]