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.
MR. BARLOW. Perhaps I weary you?
ANABEL. Oh, no--no.
MR. BARLOW. 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.
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