经济学人23:政治家,演说家,改革推动者约翰·布莱特

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　　文艺；书评；19世纪英国政坛;第三人;

　　John Bright: Statesman, Orator¹, Agitator².By Bill Cash.

　　《约翰·布莱特：政治家, 演说家, 改革推动者》;比尔·凯西。

　　Bill Cash, a Conservative British backbench politician, has written a book about another backbench politician, who also happens to be an ancestor. Mr Cash frets³ that his great-grandfather's cousin has been forgotten, but he hasn't really. No historian doubts the importance of John Bright; it is just that he has slipped out of the popular consciousness.

　　比尔·卡什(Bill Cash), 这个英国保守党普通议员为另一位普通议员写了一本书, 而其撰写的这个人物恰好是他的一位先人。卡什议员对于人们已经忘却了他的曾祖父的这位表兄感到不快, 但是其实他没有被忘记。 没有任何历史学家会怀疑约翰。布莱特(John Bright)的重要历史地位; 现今他只是从公众的视野中淡出了。

　　So, for the layman⁴, who was he? The very question, Mr Cash tells us, would have flabbergasted anyone in the 19th century. In 1878 Punch published a series of cartoons of the three Britons whom they deemed to be the greatest statesmen of the age—Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone and Bright. Born in 1811 and with a political career spanning nearly 50 years as a member of parliament for Durham, Manchester and Birmingham, Bright would be “the one contemporary statesman whose fame and accomplishments⁵ transcended⁶ the age,” according to Walter Bagehot, this newspaper's editor from 1860-77. A biography by G.M. Trevelyan, which came out in 1913, described him as “a rare example of the hero as politician”.

　　那么，对于我们这些门外汉来说, 这个约翰·布莱特究竟何方神圣？如果是在十九世纪, 卡什先生向我们提出的这个问题, 会令任何人感到诧异。 在1878年, Punch报纸出版了一系列的连载漫画, 讲述了被认为是这个国家最伟大的政治家的3个人, 他们当中有本杰明·迪斯累利(Benjamin Disreali)，威廉·格莱斯顿(William Gladstone), 还有一位就是约翰·布莱特。 曾于1860-1877年间担任该报主编的瓦尔特·伯格霍特(Walter.Bogehot)称赞这位生于1811年, 曾担任杜伦、曼切斯特和伯明翰地区议员,拥有跨越了50个年头政治生涯的老议员布莱特为“声誉和成就超越了本时代的当代政治家”。 在1913年为其出版的一本传记中, 该书作者也将布莱特描述为“一位罕见的能被称为英雄的政坛人物”。

　　A Quaker born in Rochdale, Bright made his name campaigning for the repeal⁷ of the protectionist Corn Laws, distinguishing himself, as Karl Marx testified, as “one of the most gifted orators⁸ that England has ever produced”. He was inspiring as well as courageous⁹, and his passion for free trade was allied¹⁰ to his passion for democracy. He crusaded against monopoly, aristocracy, slavery and more. It was Bright who said that “England is the mother of Parliaments”, a phrase that has passed into idiom. He fought tirelessly for the Reform Act of 1867 which gave the vote to working-class men. A radical¹¹ as well as a nonconformist, Bright was vocal¹² in his opposition¹³ to the Crimean war, which he believed to be un-Christian, a stance that eventually lost him his parliamentary seat.

　　作为来自于罗奇达尔(Rochdale)的公宜会信徒, 布莱特在针对保护主义者的玉米法案的反对运动中初次参加竞选活动, 就展现出超凡的演讲才能, 正如卡尔·马克思(Karl Marx)所言, 他是“英格兰有史以来最有天赋的演说家之一”。他的演讲大胆豪迈又鼓舞人心, 而他对自由贸易的激情又与其对民主自由的热忱紧紧结合。他严词讨伐垄断势力，贵族阶层和奴隶制度等不平等的制度，而今已成谚语的名言”英国是议会之母”就是出自其语。布莱特曾经为给予了劳工阶层投票权的1867年改革法案而不知疲倦的斗争。身为一个激进派的新教徒, 他也曾直言不讳的反对克里米亚战争(Crimean War)。布莱特认为这场战争是不符合基督教精神的，而这种立场最终让他丢掉了自己的议员席位。

　　Whether you rated him a hero or a villain¹⁴ depended on your point of view. His pugnacity¹⁵ fascinated and repelled¹⁶ people in equal measure. Early tales include a furious quarrel with a local Anglican vicar, both of them hollering from tombstones in the parish churchyard. He was, says Mr Cash, “an independent Radical by principle, with a persistent¹⁷ strain of innate¹⁸ conservatism. He was in the Liberal Party as it evolved but not always of, or evenwith, the Liberal Party”. His relationships with Gladstone and Disraeli were complex. He loathed¹⁹ Lord Palmerston, a former prime minister, and the feeling was mutual²⁰.

　　你认为布莱特是个英雄还是恶棍完全取决于你自己的好恶。他好斗的个性有多令人欣赏，同时就有多令人讨厌。他早期的轶事中就有一则关于一次他和一个圣公会的副主教暴吵了一架，两个人都在一个地区教堂的墓地里大喊大叫的故事。卡什先生说，布莱特是一个天生流着保守主义血液的自有原则的激进派；他始终都在自由党中, 但并不总是属于自由党, 甚至不见得总是支持自由党。布莱特和格莱斯顿以及迪斯累利的关系都很复杂。 他还极端厌恶前首相帕梅尔斯通(Palmerston), 而帕梅尔斯通对布莱特也没什么好感。

　　Mr Cash is a lawyer by training and a politician by profession. He has a sharp eye for detail and he presents a strong case. What he does not explain is how Bright slipped out of view. His own interest, he tells the reader, has increased “in inverse²¹ proportion to the decline in the vibrancy²², accountability and sovereignty of our Parliament”. But the underlying²³ lament²⁴, that Bright has been censored²⁵ out by fashion “as people became cynical²⁶ of moral and political certainties” is too marbled with nostalgia²⁷ to be believable.

　　卡什先生是法律专业出身, 但是现在是职业政治家。 他眼光犀利, 善于捕捉细节, 并能摆出有力的例证。 他并不想解释为什么布莱特从公众的关注中淡出了。 他在书中透露给读者, 与“英国议会的权威性、可信度和活跃度的每况愈下”, 他自己的影响力倒是与日俱增。但是那份对于”由于如今人们对道德和政治信仰已是不屑一顾”而导致布莱特被人淡忘的哀伤却显得过于有怀旧的意味而不足以令人信服。

　　Bright was a political force, but he never held high office, so he was rather like a midfielder who forever sets up the strikers: assists don't count as much as goals. A full- scale revival²⁸ of his reputation would have to rouse the reader's imagination. Mr Cash quotes Bright's dictum that “my life is in my speeches”, many of which are rhetorical masterpieces; but the reader wants more of the man, more of the life outside the speeches. Bright believed that biographies “are soon forgotten, and of no influence in the future”. Historians will enjoy this fine political portrait, but it is unlikely to make Bright famous again.

　　布莱特有相当的政治影响力, 但是却从未担任高官, 所以其实他更像是一个永远为前锋提供支持的中场队员：他的助攻不见得都能转化为得分。 要全面恢复布莱特的声望还有赖于唤起读者们的想象空间。 卡什先生引述了布莱特的一句格言”我的生命都在演讲中”, 布莱特的演讲的确很多都是修辞极佳的经典之作, 但是读者们恐怕想要更多的了解这个人, 了解这个人在演讲之外的生活中是什么样子。布莱特本人认为传记”都是容易被人遗忘的, 而且对未来也不会产生什么影响”。历史学家们应该会对这一部精致地描写了这个政治人物的著作很有兴趣, 但是这本书还是不太可能让布莱特再”火”起来。

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