英语专业晨读美文-人物篇 8 On His Seventieth Birthd

[00:01.61]On His Seventieth Birthday

[00:05.11]Of late years the public have been trying to tackle me

[00:09.85]in every way they possibly can,

[00:12.25]and failing to make anything of it they have turned to treating me as a great man.

[00:17.47] This is a dreadful fate to overtake anybody.

[00:20.97] There has been a distinct attempt to do it again now,

[00:24.69]and for that reason

[00:25.68]I absolutely decline to say anything about the celebration

[00:28.96]of my seventieth birthday. But when the Labor 1 Party,

[00:32.13] my old friends the Labor Party,

[00:34.43]invited me here I knew that l should be all right.

[00:38.36]A man who holds public property must hold it on the pub1ic condition on which,

[00:43.29]for instance, I carry my walking stick.

[00:45.91] I am not allowed to do what I like with it.

[00:48.54]I must not knock you on the head with it.

[00:50.94]We say that if distribution goes wrong,

[00:53.46]everything else goes wrong—religion, morals, government.

[00:58.82] And we say, therefore,

[01:00.46]we must begin with distribution and take all the necessary steps.

[01:04.94]I think we are keeping it in our minds

[01:07.48] because our business is to take care of the distribution of wealth in the worId

[01:11.75]and I tell you, as I have told you before,

[01:14.81]that I don't think there are two men, or perhaps one man,

[01:18.62] in our 47 000 000 who approves of the existing distribution of wealth.

[01:24.53]I will go even further and say that

[01:27.48] you will not find a single person in the whole of the civilized 2 world

[01:31.97]who agrees with the existing system of the distribution of wealth.

[01:36.23]It has been reduced to a blank absurdity 3.

[01:39.73]I think the day will come

[01:41.37]when we will be able to make the distinction between us and the capitalists.

[01:45.75] We must get certain leading ideas before the people.

[01:49.47] We should announce that

[01:50.68] we are not going in for what was the old-fashioned idea of redistribution,

[01:54.51]but the redistribution of income. Let it always be a question of income.

[02:00.95]I have been very happy here tonight.

[02:03.36]I entirely 4 understand the distinction made by our Chairman tonight

[02:07.85]when he said you hold me in social esteem 5

[02:10.81]and a certain amount of personal affection.

[02:13.33]I am not a sentimental 6 man, but l am not sensible to all that.

[02:18.47] I know the value of all that, and it gives me,

[02:21.53]now that I have come to the age of seventy

[02:23.72](it will not occur again and I am saying it for the first time),

[02:27.55]a great feeling of pleasure that l can say what a good many people can't say.