Quality versus Quantity
an excerpt from 'The National Being' by George Russell (AE), published in 1930. (the few comments in parentheses are mine--SCM)

"Often with sadness I hear people speak of industrial (commercial) development in Ireland, for I feel they contemplate no different system than that which fills workers with despair in countries where it is more successfully applied. All these energetic people are conspiring to build factories and mills and to fill them with human labour, and they believe the more they do this the better it will be for Ireland. They talk of Ireland as if it was only admirable as a quantity rather than a quality. They express delight at swelling statistics and increased trade, but where do we hear any reflection on the quality of life engendered by this industrial development? Our civilization is to differ in no way from any other. No new ideal of life is suggested to differentiate us. We are to go on exploiting human labour. Our working classes (the people) are to...earn profits for an employing (ruling) class, as labour has done from time immemorial in Babylon, in Nineveh, in Rome, and in London today. But a choice yet remains to us, because the character of our civilization is not yet fixed...It fills the spirit with weariness to think of another nation following the old path without thought or imagination of other roads leading to new and more beautiful life..."