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Yes, Englishness is still with us.
不错，英国人特性依然与我们同在，
But it needs reinforcement, extra nourishment, especially now when our public life seems ready to starve it.
但它急需增强活力，补充养分，在当今我们的公共生活看来正准备令其自生自灭的形势下尤其如此。
There are English people of all ages, though far more under thirty than over sixty, who seem to regard politics as a game but not one of their games–polo , let us say.
有些英国人似乎将政治看成一场比赛，而又不是他们自己所喜爱的比赛--比如说打马球之类。
To them the House of Commons is a remote squabbling-shop.
这种人在各个年龄层次的人中都有，但三十岁以下的比六十岁以上的要多得多。
Recognized political parties are repertory companies staging ghostly campaigns, and all that is real between them is the arrangement by which one set of chaps take their turn at ministerial jobs while the other set pretend to be astounded and shocked and bring in talk of ruin.
对这些人来说，下议院只是离自己很遥远的一个吵架斗嘴的场所。那些得势掌权的政党犹如一些定期换演剧目的剧团在上演一出出魔幻政治闹剧，其中唯一真实的事情便是轮到一帮人担任部长职务，而另一帮人则装出一副惊骇不已的样子，大发一通国家要从此遭殃的议论。
The whole thing, in the eyes of these people, is an expensive and tedious farce.
所有这一切，在这些人眼中看来，不过是一场既费钱而又无聊的闹剧。
In my view they are mistaken, indeed quite dangerously wrong, and I can only hope that no young demagogue of genius and his friends are listening to them.
我认为，他们的这种思想是错误的，而且是极危险的错误。我只希望一切天才的青年煽动家及其朋友都不要听信这种论调。
Otherwise they could soon learn, in the worst way, that heavy hands can fall on the shoulders that have been shrugging away politics.
否则，他们很快就会发现，而且是很痛苦地发现，严厉无情的铁腕有可能压到他们那一直想甩掉政治的肩膀上。
You can ignore politics, taking what has been gained for granted, only to discover your cousins have vanished and you are being knocked up at three in the morning.
你可以不问政治，对一切听之任之，但结果你会发现你的亲人们突然失踪，你自己也会在凌晨三点钟被秘密警察敲门叫醒。
Dictatorships have thrived on majorities that are apathetic and then frightened, and on minorities that are fanatically divided, brutally quarrelsome and stupid.
独裁统治在先是漠不关心、继而惊恐万状的多数人和四分五裂、酷爱争吵而又愚昧无知的少数人中间盛行起来。
