British Honor System

当权者往往利用荣誉制度谋取自身利益。在某些情况下，授予荣誉是为了换取政治捐款，在另一些情况下，授予荣誉是对支持他们的奖励。荣誉制度的这些特点在玛格丽特·撒切尔政府中表现得非常明显。约翰·沃克(John Walker，Secker&Warburg，1986)的著作《女王很高兴--英国荣誉制度在工作中》(The British Honors System At Work)受到了研究。人们知道：(1)英国荣誉制度的建立和发展往往是为了让国王赚钱，(2)劳埃德·乔治为自己的政治资金授予的荣誉比其他任何首相都多，(3)首相给支持他们政府的报社老板许多荣誉，(4)工党和工会成员出人意料地被劳资政府授予许多荣誉。人们研究了伊万·德拉贝尔爵士(Ivan de la Bere，William Kimber)的《女王骑士勋章》(The Queen‘s Order of Chivalry)。因此，关于在日本并不广为人知的骑士的一些观点被明确了下来。为了了解大众媒体是如何报道荣誉的，《泰晤士报》和英国广播公司新闻进行了核查。他们在1998年新年荣誉榜上的报告中包含了获奖者的姓名和个人历史，让我们知道，他们中的许多人，从名人到无名小卒，都在说他们从未想过自己会被授予荣誉。

Politicians in power tend to make use of honor system for their own benefit. In some cases honours are given in exchange for political donation, and in other cases are awarded as a reward for supporting them. These characteristics of honor system are seen conspicuously in Margaret Thatcher's government."The Queen Has Been Pleased-The British Honours System at Work "by John Walker (1986, Secker ＆ Warburg) was examined. And it became known that : (1) British honor system has often been established and developped in order for kings to gain money, (2) Lloyd George gave more honours than any other prime ministers for his own political funds, (3) prime ministers give many honours to newspaper owners who support their governments, (4) members of Labor Party and trade unions are, unexpectedly, given a lot of honours by the Laborgovernment."The Queen's Orders of Chivalry" by Sir Ivan De la Bere (1961, William Kimber) was studied. As a result some points were made clear about 'knight' which has not been well known in Japan.And in order to know how mass media report on honours, Times and BBC News were checked. Their reports on new year's honor list of 1998 contain names and personal histories of honoured people, and make us know that many of them, from famous to nameless, say in common that they have never expected they would be honoured.