On (Essays Collection). Hilaire Belloc
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Название: On (Essays Collection)

Автор: Hilaire Belloc

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Документальная литература

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isbn: 4064066383503

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ his life ... to tell the truth, he always borrowed money for the rates and paid it back out of the next half year ... he had such a lot of land in hand. Years ago, when farms were falling in, in the eighties, a friend of his, a practical man, who went in for silos and had been in the Guards and knew a lot about French agriculture, had told him it would pay him to have his land in hand, so when the farms fell in he consoled himself by what the friend had said; but all these years had passed and it had not paid him.

      Now to the Economist this little word “rates” suggested the hardest problem—the perhaps insoluble problem—of applied economics in our present society. He turned his vivacious eyes sharply on to the Squire and stepped out back for home, for the Castle. For a little time he said nothing, and the Squire, honestly desiring to continue the conversation, said again as he plodded by his friend’s side, “What about rates?”

      “Oh, they’ve nothing to do with it!” said the Economist, a little snappishly. “The proportionate amount of surplus produce demanded by the community does not affect the basic process of production. Of course,” he added, in a rather more conciliatory tone, “it would if the community demanded the total unearned increment and then proposed taxes beyond that limit. That, I have always said, would affect the whole nature of production.”

      “Oh!” said the Squire.

      By this time they were nearing the Castle, and it was already dusk; they were silent during the last hundred yards as the great house showed more definitely through the mist, and the Economist could note upon the face of it the coat-of-arms with which he was familiar. They had been those of his host’s great-grandfather, a solicitor who had foreclosed. These arms were of stucco. Age and the tempest had made them green, and the head of that animal which represented the family had fallen off.

      They went into the house, they drank tea with the rather worried but well-bred hostess of it, and all evening the Squire’s thoughts were of his two daughters, who dressed exactly alike in the local town, and whose dresses were not yet paid for, and of his son, whose schooling was paid for, but whose next term was ahead: the Squire was wondering about the extras. Then he remembered suddenly, and as suddenly put out of his mind by an effort of surprising energy in such a man, the date February 3rd, on which he must get a renewal or pay a certain claim.

      They sat at table; they drank white fizzy wine by way of ritual, but it was bad. The Economist could not distinguish between good wine and bad, and all the while his mind was full of a very bothersome journey to the North, where he was to read a paper to an institute upon “The Reaction of Agricultural Prosperity upon Industrial Demand.” He was wondering whether he could get them to change the hour so that he could get back by a train that would put him into London before midnight. And all this cogitation which lay behind the general talk during dinner and after it led him at last to say: “Have you a ‘Bradshaw’?”

      But the Squire’s wife had no “Bradshaw.” She did not think they could afford it. However, the eldest daughter remembered an old “Bradshaw” of last August, and brought it, but it was no use to the Economist.

      * * * * *

      How various is man! How multiplied his experience, his outlook, his conclusions!

      A LITTLE CONVERSATION IN CARTHAGE

       Table of Contents

      HANNO: Waiter! Get me a copy of The Times. [Mutters to himself. The waiter brings the copy of The Times. As he gives it to Hanno he collides with another member of the Club, and that member, already advanced in years, treads upon Hanno’s foot.]

      Hanno: Ah! Ah! Ah!... Oh! [with a grunt]. Bethaal, it’s you, is it?

      Bethaal: Gouty?

      Hanno [after saying nothing for some time]: ’Xtraordinary thing.... Nothing in the papers.

      Bethaal: Nothing odd about that! [He laughs rather loudly, and Hanno, who wishes he had said the witty thing, smirks gently without enthusiasm. Then he proceeds on another track.] I find plenty in the papers! [He puffs like a grampus.]

      Hanno: Plenty about yourself!... That’s the only good of politics, and precious little good either.... What I can’t conceive—as you do happen to be the in’s and not the out’s—is why you don’t send more men from somewhere; he has asked for them often enough.

      Bethaal [wisely]: They’re all against it; couldn’t get anyone to agree but little Schem [laughs loudly]; he’d agree to anything.

      Hanno [wagging his head sagely]: He’ll be Suffete, my boy! He’ll be a Sephad all right! He’s my sister’s own boy.

      Bethaal [surlily]: Shouldn’t wonder! All you Hannos get the pickings.

      Hanno: You talk like a book.... Anyhow, what about the reinforcements?—that does interest me.

      Bethaal [wearily]: Oh, really. I’ve heard about it until I’m tired. It isn’t the reinforcements that are wanted really; it’s money, and plenty of it. That’s what it is. [He looks about the room in search for a word.] That’s what it is. [He continues to look about the room.] That’s what it is ... er ... really. [Having found the word Bethaal is content, and Hanno remains silent for a few minutes, then:]

      Hanno: He doesn’t seem to be doing much.

      Bethaal [jumping up suddenly with surprising vigour for a man of close on seventy, and sticking his hands into his pockets, if Carthaginians had pockets]: That’s it! That’s exactly it! That’s what I say, What Hannibal really wants is money. He’s got the men right enough. The men are splendid, but all those putrid little Italian towns are asking to be bribed, and I can’t get the money out of Mohesh.

      Hanno [really interested]: Yes, now? Mohesh has got the old tradition, and I do believe it’s the sound one. Our money is as important to us as our Fleet, I mean our credit’s as important to us as our Fleet, and he’s perfectly right is Mohesh.... [Firmly] I wouldn’t let you have a penny if I were at the Treasury.

      Bethaal [surlily]: Well, he’s bound to take Rome at last anyway, so I don’t suppose it matters whether he has the money or not; but it makes me look like a fool. When everything was going well I didn’t care, but I do care now. [He holds up in succession three fat fingers]. First there was Drephia——

      Hanno [interrupting]: Trebbia.

      Bethaal: Oh, well, I don’t care.... Then there was Trasimene; then there was that other place which wasn’t marked on the map, and little Schem found for me in the very week in which I got him on to the Front Bench. You remember his speech?

      [Hanno shakes his head.]

      Bethaal [impatiently]: Oh well, anyhow you remember Cannae, don’t you?

      Hanno: Oh yes, I remember Cannae.

      Bethaal: Well, he’s bound to win. He’s bound to take the place, and then [wearily], then, as poor old Hashuah said at the Guildhall, “Annexation will be inevitable.”

      Hanno: Now, look here, may I put it to you shortly?

      Bethaal [in great СКАЧАТЬ