“福利国家”是如何养成的？_时事_双语阅读-查字典英语网

“福利国家”是如何养成的？

The Beveridge Report, widely regarded as the founding document of Britain’s welfare state, was released 70 years ago this week. The document had been commissioned 18 months earlier but the timing of its publication was fortuitous. In late 1942, the American navy halted Japanese expansion in the Pacific, the British army defeated Rommel in north Africa and Russian troops were encircling the German forces at Stalingrad. While the war would last another two-and-a-half years, its outcome was becoming daily more clear.

70年前的这一周，《贝弗里奇报告》(Beveridge Report)发表。人们普遍认为，那份报告奠定了英国“福利国家的基矗那份报告是在18个月之前委托撰写的，但发表的时机颇为幸运。1942年后期，美国海军在太平洋成功遏制了日军的扩张，英国军队在北非击败了隆美尔(Rommel)，而苏军在斯大林格勒包围了德军。尽管当时距离二战结束还有两年半的时间，但战争的结局已日趋清晰。

The report was an immediate best seller. Arthur Greenwood, the Labour minister responsible, told the House of Commons that “no document within living memory has made such a powerful impression, or stirred such hopes, as the Beveridge Report. The Treasury, inevitably, opposed it, and Winston Churchill and many other Conservatives expressed reservations. But public opinion forced the wartime coalition government to accept its recommendations.