\ There fore, when he heard that Mr Studholme in tended to resign, be had made np his mind at once to offer himself for a place where he bad many friend 0 , and where he trusted he should be supported. [Hear, bear.] With regard to his connection with the province, be might say that, before he became Resident Magistrate of Christchurch, he was a member of the Provincial Executive who initiated the first railway and the first electric tele graph in the province, [Hear, hear.] He had also been connected with the history of the province ffom the first, and if returned he should do all he could to represent Kaiapoi and the r colony at large, As long as Kaiapoi stuck to 1 him be would slick to Kaiapoi. (Hear, hear.) The present time was one of more peculiar importance than at any other, because they were as it were on the eveof a change of system. From a variety of reasons which at the the time made it a matter of expediency, and indeed of neces sity, they had to create provinces, each one perfectly independent in its mode and | form of Government, and they thus had estab lished six or seven independent powers work ing in opposite directions. Every province too came up year after year to the Colonial Legis ature for permission to pledge the credit of the colony for loans for all of objects, and thus' they became, as it iwm*, dependent upon the State, They had nj com plex and duplex system of Government at work, which was most costly, and though perhaps in times past it had done its rfoik well, which no one would deny, he thought the characteristics , of. the system was bad, 'and it’was, in his opinion, one that could not long exist! Judeed, so soon as the Immigra tiqc apd Public Works policy was accepted by tfie General Assembly, the first nail was driven iqto the coffin of provincialism. [Hear,bear]. 