I have much pleasure in supporting the Amendment. I am not objecting to women being ordered to undertake necessary work under the present powers which the Minister possesses. Already he has powers to direct women to particular forms of work. What I am urging in supporting this Amendment is that women should not be compelled to go into National Service. I have maintained, and I still maintain in spite of all that is said about our asking for equality, that military discipline and Barrack and camp life are not suitable for women and are not required; In his speech yesterday the Minister of Labour made rather a misleading statement. He said that he was bringing in this Bill because he thought there had been a good deal of indirect compulsion on women to go into the Armed Forces and that it was better to apply compulsion direct. I think that statement is not quite worthy of the present Minister of Labour, whom many of us hold in high regard, because he knows that although an official may try to persuade young women to undertake National Service they have a right at present to refuse to go into National Service, and, therefore, there is no sense in saying that. Women are not fools, and they learn the position quite clearly. Therefore the fact that an official tries to bully them does not affect them very much when they know that behind them they have the power to refuse.

I represent a big industrial area. I have not had very many complaints from the women about their treatment by Employment Exchange officials. I have had one or two, which have been put right, because the women are intelligent and know they do not need to go into National Service unless they desire. What we are asking in this Amendment is that the position should be left as it is. The Minister can direct women to go to necessary work, and he should not have this power to force them into the Forces. This compulsion is to apply only to single women. Personally, I do not wish to try to push any more women into this category, but under the Bill there is nothing to exclude married women; it is done only by regulation, which can be withdrawn if and when it suits the Government. I remember the old Derby scheme in the last war. One section is taken, and that section clamours for other sections to be put in the same position, until everyone is included. You will not find that it will take very long, if the Government need young married women, for them to take them.

Looking at the matter from the point of view of morals, someone accused me of being Victorian—I I think it was the hon. and gallant Member for Nuneaton (Commander Fletcher). I have received from two men a most indignant letter about his speech, in which he suggested I was Victorian. It is true that I was born in Queen Victoria's reign. I can assure the hon. Member—and I think everyone on this side will bear me out, as will the Minister of Labour—that so far as young working-class women were concerned we worked in shops until 11 o'clock on a Saturday night. We were turned out when public houses were emptying. In those days I have walked home through badly lit Glasgow streets in which were drunken men and prostitutes. I learned quite early to look after myself. You must not assume that in Queen Victoria's days women were protected. You hear a lot about the long hours women are working in factories and how splendid it is. In my days that was their normal life. They worked for 12 hours, for six days a week, in factories, workshops and mills, and in the shops we worked 80, 90 and 100 hours a week. I never had a half-holiday or a Saturday afternoon until I was married. I never had much leisure until I got a good man to look after me. I am not one of the people who think that men are worse than women or that they are going about trying to destroy them. I never suggested that. I say that if you take masses of men away from womenfolk and give them no emotional, cultural, intelligent life, train them to be healthy animals, as is necessary for a soldier, and throw some attractive girls among them, the girls will not be too safe. I am not stressing that point now.