There was little opposition in the assembly to giving the Spreckels group what it wanted. Principally the discussion was as to whether it was better to clothe the harbor commissioners in general terms with the power to lease water-front property,[480] or whether the board should be authorized only to lease a described parcel to a specified group of persons.[481] The fear was expressed in the course of the debate lest the tract desired by the San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railway might be leased to a corporation controlled by the Southern Pacific, and that other parcels might go the same way. On the other hand, it was pointed out that a provision for a lease to specified parties might prove unconstitutional as an example of special legislation. In the end the “Gleaves” bill with the so-called “Powers” amendment passed the assembly by a vote of 60 to 9, and the senate by a narrower margin of 21 to 17. In its final form it authorized the State Board of Harbor Commissioners to lease any land belonging to the state which was required for terminal purposes, at a maximum rental of $1,000 a year. No land was to be leased for a longer period than fifty years, not more than 50 acres was to be leased to any one railroad, and no lease was to be assignable without the written consent of the commissioners. As a still further protection, it was provided that the beneficiary of the lease must be a railroad company. Such a company, moreover, must be incorporated within the state of California, and it might not be a corporation which, at the date of the passage of the act, had any terminal facilities in the city and county of San Francisco.[482] Terms of Lease Armed with the legislative sanction, Mr. Spreckels undertook negotiations with the Board of Harbor Commissioners and with Mayor Sutro, of San Francisco, and Governor Budd, which lasted from the middle of March, 1895, to the second week in July. In its main outlines the lease finally agreed upon offered to the San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railway Company the use of a defined area of 24¼ acres more or less located near the foot of Fourth Street, San Francisco, and bounded upon the water side by the sea-wall and thoroughfare established by the legislature of 1878. In return for this considerable grant, the lessee agreed to reclaim the lands granted from the tide, to place tracks, warehouses, and freight sheds upon them; to pay a nominal rental of $1,000 a year; and in addition, to commence within six months, and to construct and have in operation within ten years, not less than 50 miles in continuous railroad in addition to the mileage already constructed in 1895, one end of which was to be at some point on the Bay of San Francisco south of an east and west line drawn through Point Pinole.