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9
District II.
Steel at 1/6 to 5/- 21.7%
Nickel at 2/-to 5/6 36.7%
Rolled gold at 6/6 to 10/- 26.5%
Rolled gold and Shellite at 11/6 to 15/- 15.l%
The inference is fairly obvious. Where the contract price
for the cheapest spectacles is considerably below ours, the percentage
of these cheap glasses supplied is comparatively small,
and appears to be merely a bait offered by the opticians in order to
secure for themselves the higher priced work. This naturally tends
to act to the detriment of the scheme.
Another Authority—on the same basis as ourselves—provides
practically nothing but nickel frames.

In this district the parents' inability to pay these prices is such
that a special fund had to be raised to pay for the spectacles.
It is an illuminating point that of all the districts investigated,
the one with the most expensive spectacles supplied has the lowest
percentage of spectacles obtained.
In one case steel frames only are specified in the contract, but
the parents can go to the contractor's shop and change the steel
frames for more expensive frames, the prices then being almost
identical with those in the district last mentioned.
Instead of being able to criticise our contract, I am more than
ever convinced that a flat rate is far the best from the point of
view of the popularity of the service, particularly with those
parents whose child has a high error, or progressive myopia, who