The following sensible remarks re* garding the coming elections under the Counties Act passed last session df As* sembly, are from the Mount Ida Chronicle : —

In the course of a few weeks the pro clamations dividing the Counties into ridings, aud fixing the dates of the first elections, will be published. Many staunch Provincialists, looking upoa Counties as substitutes for Provincial ism, »vill have nothing to do even ia contemplation with the elections. A very little reflection should prove this to be a false posiion for them to take up. In the 'first place the Counties, under the machinery provided, cannot be looked upon as in any way substitutes for Provincialism as granted to New Zealand under the Constitution Act* Permissive provisions for the formation of Counties in Otago have beeu in ex istence since 1872, to exist similarly as Road Boards, colaterally with, and em braced in, the Provincial machinery. The Ordinance of 1872 has the ad vantage over the present Act of endow ing Counties formed under it with a fixed percentage of their local land fund, :a system which has proved so successful in the Canterbury Coun'v of Timaru and Gladstone. The Counties as about to be created are really, except in name, nothingbutßoad Boards. Such of them as contain Road Board districts will practically be managed hy the Road Boards, the County Council* acting only as a distributing medium , of any monies which may fall to the I share of the road distriots within th© I ridings. Where the Abolition Act proved ultra vires to-morrow such proof need not effect the Counties Act, now law, in the smallest particular. The power of Parliament to pass the Counties Act is indisputable. Anyone who believes in a loose sort of way that the functions of the Provincial Councils are to be carried oo by the Counties has misconceived the statute altogether. All. such Provincial functions, so far as they are preserved will be continued by the General Government, the nominee Waste Lands and Educational Boards throughout the Colony. There is not a single executive act of authority to our knowledge that the County Councils will possess that cannot now be ex ercised by any Road Board in the Pro vince. 