There was a great deal of suffering, which you were too young to appreciate. However, since that year I have had to acknowledge a new situation--a radical if unspoken opposition between masters and men. Since that year we have been split into opposite camps. Whatever I might privately feel, I was one of the owners, one of the masters, and therefore in the opposite camp. To my men I was an oppressor, a representative of injustice and greed. Privately, I like to think that even to this day they bear me no malice, that they have some lingering regard for me. But the master stands before the human being, and the condition of war overrides individuals--they hate the master, even whilst, as a human being, he would be their friend. I recognise the inevitable justice. It is the price one has to pay. (ANABEL: Yes, it is difficult--very.) Perhaps I weary you? (ANABEL: Oh, no--no.) Well--then the mines began to pay badly. The seams ran thin and unprofitable, work was short. Either we must close down or introduce a new system, American methods, which I dislike so extremely. Now it really became a case of men working against machines, flesh and blood working against iron, for a livelihood. Still, it had to be done--the whole system revolutionised. Gerald took it in hand--and now I hardly know my own pits, with the great electric plants and strange machinery, and the new coal-cutters--iron men, as the colliers call them--everything running at top speed, utterly dehumanised, inhuman. Well, it had to be done; it was the only alternative to closing down and throwing three thousand men out of work. And Gerald has done it. But I can't bear to see it. The men of this generation are not like my men. They are worn and gloomy; they have a hollow look that I can't bear to see. They are a great grief to me. I remember men even twenty years ago--a noisy, lively, careless set, who kept the place ringing. I feel it is unnatural; I feel afraid of it. And I cannot help feeling guilty.

Mrs Barlow Monologue from Touch and Go: A Play in Three Acts

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