Mr. Barlow monologue (Act 2) — Touch and Go: A Play in Three Acts

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.