formerly supported him.
The sequel proved that the three resigning members were right, for they
won much more in public respect by their conduct than they lost by their
temporary exclusion from the House of Assembly.

{THE ST. JOHN ELECTION}

The gentlemen returned for the three seats in St. John which had been
vacated by the resigning members were James A. Harding, John Goddard and
John Johnson. Mr. Harding, who ran for the city, was opposed by S. K.
Foster. Harding was a Liberal, but this fact does not seem to have been
kept in view when he was elected. The net result of the whole affair was
that the constituency of St. John could not be relied upon to support a
Liberal principle, or any kind of principle as against men. That has
always been a peculiarity of the St. John constituencies, men being more
important than measures, and frequently a mere transient feeling being
set off against the most important considerations of general policy.

Tilley was not in the House of Assembly during the sessions of 1852,
1853 and 1854; that period was one, however, of development in political
matters and of substantial progress. The governor's speech at the
opening of the session of 1852 was largely devoted to railways, and it
expressed the opinion that a railroad connecting Canada and Nova Scotia,
and a connection with a line from St. John to the United States, would
produce an abundant return to the province, and that by this means
millions of tons of timber, then standing worthless in the forest, would
find a profitable market. It was during this session that Messrs. Peto,
Brassy and Betts proposed to construct the European and North American
Railway, on certain conditions. The subsidies offered by the province at
this time were twenty thousand pounds a year for twenty years, and a
million acres of land for the European and North American Railway, as
the line to the United States was termed; and for the Quebec line,
twenty-two thousand pounds sterling for twenty years, and two million
acres of land. A new company, which included Mr. Jackson, M. P., offered
to build the New Brunswick section of both railroads, upon the province
granting them a subsidy of twenty thousand pounds a year for twenty
years, and four million acres of land. Attorney-General Street
introduced a series of railway resolutions favouring the building of the
Intercolonial Railway jointly by the three provinces, according to terms
which had been agreed upon