BROADBENT [a little impatient of this unbusinesslike view].Yes,yes;but you know you might say that of any country.The fact is,there are only two qualities in the world:efficiency and inefficiency,and only two sorts of people:the efficient and the inefficient.It don't matter whether they're English or Irish.Ishall collar this place,not because I'm an Englishman and Haffigan and Co are Irishmen,but because they're duffers and Iknow my way about.
KEEGAN.Have you considered what is to become of Haffigan?
LARRY.Oh,we'll employ him in some capacity or other,and probably pay him more than he makes for himself now.
BROADBENT [dubiously].Do you think so?No no:Haffigan's too old.It really doesn't pay now to take on men over forty even for unskilled labor,which I suppose is all Haffigan would be good for.No:Haffigan had better go to America,or into the Union,poor old chap!He's worked out,you know:you can see it.
KEEGAN.Poor lost soul,so cunningly fenced in with invisible bars!
LARRY.Haffigan doesn't matter much.He'll die presently.
BROADBENT [shocked].Oh come,Larry!Don't be unfeeling.It's hard on Haffigan.It's always hard on the inefficient.
LARRY.Pah!what does it matter where an old and broken man spends his last days,or whether he has a million at the bank or only the workhouse dole?It's the young men,the able men,that matter.The real tragedy of Haffigan is the tragedy of his wasted youth,his stunted mind,his drudging over his clods and pigs until he has become a clod and a pig himself--until the soul within him has smouldered into nothing but a dull temper that hurts himself and all around him.I say let him die,and let us have no more of his like.And let young Ireland take care that it doesn't share his fate,instead of making another empty grievance of it.Let your syndicate come--BROADBENT.Your syndicate too,old chap.You have your bit of the stock.
LARRY.Yes,mine if you like.Well,our syndicate has no conscience:it has no more regard for your Haffigans and Doolans and Dorans than it has for a gang of Chinese coolies.It will use your patriotic blatherskite and balderdash to get parliamentary powers over you as cynically as it would bait a mousetrap with toasted cheese.It will plan,and organize,and find capital while you slave like bees for it and revenge yourselves by paying politicians and penny newspapers out of your small wages to write articles and report speeches against its wickedness and tyranny,and to crack up your own Irish heroism,just as Haffigan once paid a witch a penny to put a spell on Billy Byrne's cow.In the end it will grind the nonsense out of you,and grind strength and sense into you.
BROADBENT [out of patience].Why can't you say a simple thing simply,Larry,without all that Irish exaggeration and talky-talky?The syndicate is a perfectly respectable body of responsible men of good position.We'll take Ireland in hand,and by straightforward business habits teach it efficiency and self-help on sound Liberal principles.You agree with me,Mr Keegan,don't you?
KEEGAN.Sir:I may even vote for you.
BROADBENT [sincerely moved,shaking his hand warmly].You shall never regret it,Mr Keegan:I give you my word for that.I shall bring money here:I shall raise wages:I shall found public institutions,a library,a Polytechnic [undenominational,of course],a gymnasium,a cricket club,perhaps an art school.Ishall make a Garden city of Rosscullen:the round tower shall be thoroughly repaired and restored.
KEEGAN.And our place of torment shall be as clean and orderly as the cleanest and most orderly place I know in Ireland,which is our poetically named Mountjoy prison.Well,perhaps I had better vote for an efficient devil that knows his own mind and his own business than for a foolish patriot who has no mind and no business.
BROADBENT [stiffly].Devil is rather a strong expression in that connexion,Mr Keegan.
KEEGAN.Not from a man who knows that this world is hell.But since the word offends you,let me soften it,and compare you simply to an ass.[Larry whitens with anger].
BROADBENT [reddening].An ass!
KEEGAN [gently].You may take it without offence from a madman who calls the ass his brother--and a very honest,useful and faithful brother too.The ass,sir,is the most efficient of beasts,matter-of-fact,hardy,friendly when you treat him as a fellow-creature,stubborn when you abuse him,ridiculous only in love,which sets him braying,and in politics,which move him to roll about in the public road and raise a dust about nothing.Can you deny these qualities and habits in yourself,sir?
BROADBENT [goodhumoredly].Well,yes,I'm afraid I do,you know.
KEEGAN.Then perhaps you will confess to the ass's one fault.
BROADBENT.Perhaps so:what is it?
KEEGAN.That he wastes all his virtues--his efficiency,as you call it--in doing the will of his greedy masters instead of doing the will of Heaven that is in himself.He is efficient in the service of Mammon,mighty in mischief,skilful in ruin,heroic in destruction.But he comes to browse here without knowing that the soil his hoof touches is holy ground.Ireland,sir,for good or evil,is like no other place under heaven;and no man can touch its sod or breathe its air without becoming better or worse.It produces two kinds of men in strange perfection:saints and traitors.It is called the island of the saints;but indeed in these later years it might be more fitly called the island of the traitors;for our harvest of these is the fine flower of the world's crop of infamy.But the day may come when these islands shall live by the quality of their men rather than by the abundance of their minerals;and then we shall see.