What follows does apply to old-age pensioners, to people still overworked and underpaid, to all the English who have some integrity, some individual judgment and real values.
下面所说的情况不适用于上了年纪的退休人员，不适用于那些仍然在多劳少得的人，也不适用于所有那些具有正直的品格、独立的判断力和正确的价值观的英国人。
Far too many of the other English-though 1 don't say a majority-are sloppy people.
其余的英国人中有许多-虽不能说是大多数一都是一些马大哈式的人物。
They are easy to get along with, rarely unkind, but they are not dependable; they are inept,shiftless, slovenly , messy.
他们容易相处，通常都是和和气气的，但就是不可信赖。他们平庸无能，懒懒散散，办事草率，拖泥带水。
This is not entirely their own fault.
这也不完全是他们自己的过错。
Unlike their fathers or grandfathers, they have not been disciplined by grim circumstances.
和自己的父辈或祖辈们不一样，他们没有经受过严峻环境的锻炼。
They are no longer facing starvation if they don't work properly or go on strike, no longer told to clear out if they aren't properly respectful and start answering back, no longer find themselves the victims of too many hard facts.
他们不再会因为干活马虎或参加罢工而面临挨饿的威胁，不再会因为对上司不恭或无礼顶撞而被撵出去，不再发现自己成为许多严酷事实的牺牲品了。
And this, in my opinion, is how things should be in a civilized society.
在我看来，这正是文明社会中应有的现象。
But people who have been liberated from the harsh discipline of circumstance should then move on to acquire some measure of self-discipline.
但人们从严酷的环境约束中解放出来之后就应该努力学会一些自我约束的方法。
Without self- discipline a man cannot play an adequate part in a civilized society: he will be just slopping around, accepting no responsibility, skimping the work he is supposed to be doing, cheating not only the bosses, the capitalists, but even his neighbours.
一个人没有自我约束，便不能在文明社会中充分发挥作用，而只能无所事事地混日子，什么责任也不承担，工作起来马马虎虎，敷衍塞责，不但欺骗老板、资本家，甚至连自己的左邻右舍也一样欺骗。
And unless he is an unusual type, he will not even find much satisfaction in this scrounging messy existence, which does nothing for a man's self-respect.
除非他属于某种不一般的类型，他甚至对自己这种有损于人的自尊的不劳而获的混帐生活都不会感到太大的满足。