But the inspector could not appreciate the priest's arguments. He held that the people were thinking only how they might earn enough money to fill their bellies.
"I don't agree with you, I don't agree with you," said the priest. "Better go in the opposite direction and make a road to the sea."
"Well, your reverence, the Government do not wish to engage upon any work that will benefit any special class. These are my instructions."
"A road to the sea will benefit no one.... I see you are thinking of the landlord. But there is no harbour; no boat ever comes into that flat, waste sea."
"Well, your reverence, one of these days a harbour may be made, whereas an arch would look well in the middle of the bog, and the people would not have to go far to their work."
"No, no. A road to the sea will be quite useless; but its futility will not be apparent—at least, not so apparent—and the people's hearts will not be broken."
The inspector seemed a little doubtful, but the priest assured him that the futility of the road would satisfy English ministers.
"And yet these English ministers," the priest reflected, "are not stupid men; they are merely men blinded by theory and prejudice, as all men are who live in the world. Their folly will be apparent to the next generation, and so on and so on for ever and ever, world without end."
"And the worst of it is," the priest said, "while the people are earning their living on these roads their fields will be lying idle, and there will be no crops next year."
Father MacTurnan began to think of the cardinals and the transaction of business in the Vatican; cardinals and ministers alike are the dupes of convention. Only those who are estranged from habits and customs can think straightforward.