On His Seventieth Birthday
喬治·蕭伯納 / George Bernard Shaw
喬治·蕭伯納(1856—1950),愛爾蘭作家、戲劇家和政論家,出身於都柏林一個公務員之家,曾當過抄寫員、會計,赴倫敦後開始從事創作。1925年獲諾貝爾文學獎,他的主要作品有《巴巴拉上校》《蘋果車》《聖女貞德》等。
Ace in the Hole
Understand these new words before you read this article.
1. constitutional adj. 憲法規定的,合乎憲法的;憲法的;體質上的,生來的
2. compromisen. 妥協,折中方法
3. capitalism n.資本主義(製度);資本(或財富)的擁有;資本(私人占有和生產盈利)的支配地位
4. promulgate v. 宣揚(某事物);傳播;公布,頒布(法令、新法律等)
5. absurdity n. 極端無理性,悖理;荒謬;謬論;荒謬的行為
Of late years the public have been trying to tackle me in every way they possibly can, and failing to make anything of it they have turned to treating me as a great man. This is a dreadful fate to overtake anybody. There has been a distinct attempt to do it again now, and for that reason I absolutely decline to say anything about the celebration of my seventieth birthday. But when the Labor Party, my old friends the Labor Party, invited me here, I knew that I should be all right.
Now, however, we have built up a Constitutional Party. We have built it up on a socialistic basis. My friend, Mr. Sidney Webb, Mr. Macdonald and myself said definitely at the beginning that what we had got to do was to make the Socialist Party a constitutional party to which any respectable God-fearing man could belong without the slightest compromise of his respectability. We got rid of all those traditions that is why Governments in the present day are more afraid of us than they were of any of the Radical people.
Our position is a perfectly simple one and we have the great advantage of understanding our position. We oppose socialism to capitalism.