Things at the Round Table for some time went smoothly enough. Mr. Chamberlain gradually advanced the whole length. He publicly committed himself to the expediency of establishing some kind of legislative authority in Dublin in accordance with Mr. Gladstone's principle, with a preference, in his own mind, for a plan on the lines of Canada. This he followed up, also in public, by the admission that of course the Irish legislature must be allowed to organize their own form of executive government, either by an imitation on a small scale of all that goes on at Westminster and Whitehall, or in whatever other shape they might think proper.... Then the surface became mysteriously ruffled. Language was used by some of the plenipotentiaries in public, of which each side in turn complained as inconsistent with conciliatory negotiations in private. At last, on the very day on which the provisional result of the Conference was laid before Mr. Gladstone, there appeared in a print called _The Baptist_ an article from Mr. Chamberlain containing an ardent plea for the disestablishment of the Welsh Church, but warning the Welshmen that they and the Scotch crofters, and the English labourers--thirty-two millions of people--must all go without much-needed legislation because three millions were disloyal, while nearly six hundred members of Parliament would be reduced to forced inactivity because some eighty delegates, representing the policy and receiving the pay of the Chicago Convention, were determined to obstruct all business until their demands were conceded. Men naturally asked what was the use of continuing a discussion when one party to it was attacking in this peremptory fashion the very persons and the policy that in private he was supposed to accept. Mr. Gladstone showed no implacability ... he said ... "I am inclined to think we can hardly do more now.... We are quite willing that the subject should stand over for resumption at a convenient season." The resumption never happened. Two or three weeks later Mr. Chamberlain announced that he did not intend to return to the Round Table. No other serious and formal attempt was ever made on either side to prevent the Liberal Unionists from hardening into a separate species. When they became accomplices in coercion they cut off the chances of reunion. THE COMING OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION (1887). =Source.=--_The Times_, March 17.