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  3. The second admirable quality of our gentry and professional class is the refusal to take bribes. Perhaps "refusal" is too strong

The second admirable quality of our gentry and professional class is the refusal to take bribes. Perhaps "refusal" is too strong

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问题     The second admirable quality of our gentry and professional class is the refusal to take bribes. Perhaps "refusal" is too strong a word, for he would be a daring man who even attempted to bribe this type of gentleman. "It would be like violating a nun!" as a "crook" once said to me, when for a moment he contemplated buying a private advantage from an English official. It is seldom thought of, and it is hardly ever done. Our Civil Servants in India, for instance, have repeated opportunities of making a lot of money by taking bribes, but I remember only one case of even a suspicion of corruption. This reputation for incorruptibility is the greatest of our advantages in administering the Empire. Its rarity among nearly all the other peoples I have known raises our officials almost to the level of divine superiority, and without it we could not hold the Empire together, nor would it be worth the pains. A businessman who has worked long under the system of concessions in Russia tells me that it is now impossible to bribe the Commissar or other high officials there. That is an immense advance, for under Tsarism one had only to signify the chance of a good bribe and one got what one wanted. But nowadays on the suspicion of bribery both parties are shot off-hand. It is a drastic way of teaching what we have somehow learnt so smoothly that we are scarcely conscious of the lesson or of our need of it. Yet there was need. Less than two centuries ago, bribery ran riot among our aristocracy and politicians, so that a Prime Minister could boast that every man had his price. The change is remarkable, and in spite of all that can be justly said against our Public Schools, I think it may be traced to an unconscious sense of honour somehow instilled among the boys.
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答案 “斥绝”贿赂是我们的中上层官员及专业人员的第二种令人钦佩的品质。或许“斥绝”这个字眼有些重，但谁要是企图敢向这些绅士君子们行贿，也真是胆大包天了。一个“邪家伙”一次对我说，有一回他想通过贿赂从英国官吏那儿捞点油水，他觉得简直“就像是要强奸一个尼姑那样难。”很少有人对这类事动过心思，真正染指这类事的人便更稀罕了。譬如，我们在印度的官吏，他们有接二连三的机会去索巨贿，发横财，但据我记忆，只有一例此类事情发生过，且仅仅只是有腐败的嫌疑而已。这种廉洁清正的威信是我们治理大英帝国的最大的优势。据我所知，其他的民族很少具备这种品质，这使我们的官吏几乎神化了。没有这种品质，我们就无法将大英帝国联结在一起，而且也没有花费这番心血的必要。一位长期在俄国特权制度下做买卖的商人跟我说，现在再去对部长或其他高级官员行贿已很难下手了。这真是个巨大的进步，因为在沙俄统治下，一个人只要及时行一次贿，就能唾手可得他想要的东西。可现在两党都在对有受贿嫌疑这点上互相攻击。虽然我们既没有觉察到这种教育，也没有意识到其必要性，但这种教育方式的确是令人惊心动魄的。我们对此早已心领神会。但这也的确是很有必要的。不到两个世纪之前，贿赂之风曾在我们的贵族及政客们之间肆虐。一位首相甚至曾大言不惭地说，每个人都有一个身价。尽管目前许多对私立学校的批评言论有其立足之处，但我认为，男孩子们具备的这种好品质，还是可以从对他们灌输的无意识的荣誉感中找到其渊源的。现在这种变化真可谓是太显著了。
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