§ LORD TENTERDEN rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether, as there are so many camps in which under various services groups of women are working under different conditions, an Advisory Committee could be appointed with the object of assuring a uniform standard of housing, recreation, and discipline, and that in each camp there shall be a responsible woman at the head of all the women employed.
§ The noble Lord said: My Lords, as one of the early pioneers of the Women Suffrage Bill it will be easily understood that I am actively interested in the welfare of women; but more particularly am I interested in the welfare of the women war workers of the country; and it is with reference to that somewhat difficult problem that my Question has been put upon the Paper. The noble Earl, Lord Stanhope, asked me the other day to what camps I referred—did I refer to munition camps, or to the camps in France, or to what camps? I did not refer to munition camps as they are under a very ably conducted welfare scheme supervised by Dr. Collis. I did not refer to the camps in France; but I did refer to the camps in this country.
§ It is generally supposed that the camps in this country comprise only the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, and that this is the beginning and end of it. That, of course, is not the case. In addition to the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, there is the Women's Legion, the Navy and Army Canteen Board, the Army Service Corps, the Royal Flying Corps, added to which, I think, there is now the Women's Royal Air Force; the Lady Paget Military Massage Corps, Miscellaneous Tailors, Miscellaneous Canteen Workers, Miscellaneous Servants, and clerics enlisted by Commanding Officers and put into uniforms. Therefore there are a large number of different organisations all connected with this admirable war work. In many cases the welfare of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps has been well looked after. That is easily understood because, as I mentioned just now, they have a proper administration to see that they are cared for. This corps sets a very high standard of efficiency in many respects, including the things I have mentioned in my Question—housing, recreation, and discipline; but I am sorry to say that my information is that this standard is not kept up with regard to the other organisations.
1202§ Your Lordships may remember that some time ago a very interesting article appeared in one of the leading London newspapers, the Pall Mall Gazette, in which the whole question of women's welfare was carefully gone into, and it was there explained that the conditions were very adverse and contrary to the interests of recruiting, and bad for the health of the women generally. This report was signed by Mrs. Alec Gilmour. That lady has shown greater patriotism, perhaps, than many women of this country. She has herself worked in camps both in France and here, and has had great experience as an organising secretary of one of the greatest charitable institutions of the country. She is therefore an authority on this matter, and it is on information that I have received from her that I have been able to study the facts of the real state of things existing in these camps. She has made it her business to study the conditions under which the women have to carry out this war work, and she drew up a most interesting report on the subject which I studied carefully before I came to your Lordships' House. In addition, this report was seen by Dr. Collis, head of the Welfare Department of the Ministry of Munitions, and he expressed an opinion that a very useful crusade was being started and he wished every success to the effort being made. The Right Hon. G. N. Barnes also considers that the report discloses a very serious condition of affairs in the camps.
§ Now it is a fact—and without any report it is so well known that anybody acquainted with the condition of the camps knows it is so—that in the matter of housing and recreation and discipline things are in a very bad state indeed. Women are invited to these camps, and no proper housing is provided. With regard to recreation there is none, beyond, it may be, a concert or a cinema. There are no rooms where women who want to be respected can assemble and have some sort of quiet recreation without being thrown upon the camp life. This leads me to the important point that these women having nowhere else to go are of necessity thrown among men and have to wander about the camps, and the results may be easily imagined. The consequences are very serious.
§ The question of venereal disease has been discussed and mentioned here by Lord Willoughby de Broke, and he alluded to the Royal Commission and asked when it 1203 was going to do something. I, too, should like to ask why we have heard nothing about it. They might well turn their attention to these camps, where disease of that kind is rife. It is perfectly obvious that unless there is some control of the camps this kind of thing must continue. Lord Stanhope pointed out to me the other day that there was a commander of every unit, and therefore there was control. I do not deny that there is a commander of every unit, but there is not any one responsible at the head of the camp. In some cases such a person as the camp cook has been placed at the head of the camp. That is not a suitable person to look after a large camp. He also pointed out to me that various camps differed in their conditions. Naturally they do. A camp in one part of England naturally differs from a camp in another part of the country, but that is no reason why the conditions in the same camp should differ to the extent they do. Why in one camp do you find things all right in regard to housing but no discipline, and in another bad housing and good discipline? Why also is no proper medical attention given? The question of medical attention is a serious matter. The only thing that is done for a woman in these camps when she gets ill is to send her home. But then you lose her, and that is not the way in which to carry on a properly conducted camp.
§ My suggestion is that there should be an Advisory Committee appointed of men and women having knowledge of camp life, who should have supervision over these camps without interfering with the actual work done—that they should be an advisory body to advise on the subjects of housing, recreation, discipline, and medical attention. Recently your Lordships discussed the question of a Ministry of Health, and Lord Willoughby de Broke in a most admirable speech, full of a most sincere desire to help, showed us how necessary it was that some sort of Bill should be introduced for the welfare of both men and women in regard to health; and he particularly pointed out the desirability of this in regard to the future generations, because of what was going to happen to them if the health of the women and children of the country was neglected. Is not this a case in which the health and welfare of the women are being neglected? At least that is my assertion, and I have very good authority for saying so.
§ It is common knowledge that these camps are in the condition which I have 1204 described, and it is perfectly evident that this is one of the cases in which the health of the women should be most carefully studied. Women have to do arduous work for the country, and even from the selfish national point of view we can ill afford to ignore their welfare. I trust that the Government will consider favourably the suggestions which I have made. The passing of the woman Suffrage Bill must surely have entitled women to become a political and industrial entity, and I am certain that the last thing in the world which the Government desire to see is a continuance of the conditions I have described in the camps of the women war workers.
§ EARL STANHOPEMy Lords, I wrote to the noble Lord in regard to his Question, because it was put down in such general terms that I really did not know whether it applied to this country or any other, or to munition workers or other bodies of women who were working for the State. The noble Lord was good enough to tell me that it did not refer to France or to munition workers, but that is all the information I received. I naturally expected that I should be given definite information as to why he recommended that an Advisory Committee should be set up, and why he thought that the present system was not working as well as it might.
I am surprised that the noble Lord should have made grave and general charges against women, and should not have brought forward one single case which could be definitely looked into. The noble Lord talked about women getting into trouble in the camps and unfortunate incidents happening, but he did not say where this was. He made that general charge against a body of women who are doing magnificent service to the State, and who, I believe, are far less likely to figure in unfortunate incidents than women who are not doing any work at all. The system at present is that all units have their own responsible officers and these officers again are responsible to senior officers, who inspect them and assist them in every way.
The standard of housing must necessarily vary with local conditions. For instance, in the one case you may have camps such as that on Salisbury Plain, or others even more recent and perhaps not so permanent. On the other hand, you have London, which the Germans describe as an "armed camp." It is perfectly obvious that you cannot have 1205 the same standard of housing in London as you would have in the middle of Salisbury Plain. Similarly with regard to recreation. The standard of recreation in a big town is different from that which you would set up in a country district. Then there is the question of discipline. The noble Lord wishes to set up apparently an Advisory Committee which should be appointed to co-ordinate housing, recreation, and discipline. All these numerous bodies—and the noble Lord mentioned only a small part of them—are enlisted under various conditions, with different standards, and they work under different rules. Therefore for any one Committee fully to grasp all the various conditions of service under which women are employed would be itself a task which would keep them fully occupied for many a day before they could give any recommendation of value.
Finally, the noble Lord in his Question points out that there are very many camps and different services, but he only proposes one Advisory Committee to deal with the whole of them. We believe that this would merely introduce further complication, and that the proper system is the one which is now in force—namely, that there should be a responsible woman in charge of each unit, and that she should be supervised and assisted by others senior to her. Every Department under which women are working is only too anxious that their conditions should be as good as possible, and if the noble Lord will bring forward definite cases we shall be only too glad to look into them and put them right.
LORD TENTERDENMy Lords, I am very much obliged to the noble Earl for his reply. He admitted that the standard is not uniform—that there are different standards—and he did not say that there is anybody in control of the camps. We know that there are unit commanders, but he said that the conditions vary. It is because I want to see the conditions uniform that I brought forward the suggestion.