"On the top of all this political chicanery and impudent pretence of popular representation, there sits an autocratic, irresponsible, hereditary legislative body, consisting exclusively of idlers and parasites who reserve to themselves the right of rejecting all laws which do not clearly further their own exactions and monopolies! Then ask yourselves: Of what use is Parliament? Of what use can it ever be to the mass of the common people?"[577] Parliament is not only useless to the worker, but is also, according to the Socialists, utterly corrupt and callous to the sufferings of the people. "Whenever an American is met abroad with the assertion that government in the Republic is corrupt, he can safely say that for one ounce of corruption in America there is a full pound avoirdupois in Britain."[578] "It is extremely doubtful, indeed, whether either slavery or the slave-trade would be abandoned in the British Empire if they still existed to-day, and their abrogation and suppression depended upon the English House of Commons. The hideous corruption in that assembly and the utter indifference of the majority of its plutocratic members and their retainers to the welfare of any people, at home or abroad, where money is to be made by neglecting the commonest rules of ethics, have never been so clearly manifested as they are to-day."[579] "The suffrage in Great Britain is very unsatisfactory, as the following table shows: Per cent. of the population having a vote. France 27.9 Switzerland 23.5 Greece 23.0 Spain 22.4 Belgium 21.5 Germany 21.2 Bulgaria 21.2 Norway 19.9 Austria 19.9 Portugal 19.0 Great Britain 16.5 Denmark 16.4 Servia 16.0 Holland 16.0 As to England, she occupies a very low place in the scale. But then the people here have not even got universal suffrage! And this is a 'democratic,' 'self-governing' community."[580] Furthermore, "The time has come when members of Parliament will have to receive payment for their services in the House of Commons, because the people have realised that they cannot be adequately represented only by men of wealth and position who are able to pay their own expenses."[581]