It appeared in this connection that a gentleman named Sir Rivers Wilson had come to the United States in 1894 as a representative of English shareholders.[514] Sir Rivers interviewed officers of the Central Pacific, inspected the property, and it was reported in the newspapers after his return to the East that he had arrived at a compromise with Mr. Huntington. The terms of the compromise were at first only vaguely understood, but the _London Economist_, in its issue of March 23, 1895, declared specifically that Mr. Huntington had undertaken to pay 1 per cent per annum in the shape of dividends until satisfactory legislation had been obtained for the adjustment of the Central Pacific’s debt to the government, and that he had also agreed to pay 2 per cent per annum for two years after the debt question had been settled, during which time the shareholders would have opportunity to review their position and to consider effecting an arrangement of a more permanent character. Mr. Huntington’s attention was called to this statement of the _Economist_, but he made no denial of the facts stated. Three years later Mr. Huntington went further, and admitted that he had agreed with Sir Rivers Wilson to pay shareholders—all shareholders—an annual dividend of 1 per cent upon their stock.[515] It was understood that the money for the secret Central Pacific dividends was loaned to the Central Pacific by the Southern Pacific, although this detail was not authoritatively established. Market Prices of Stock Shares Neither the Central Pacific nor the Southern Pacific were ever investment properties under the Huntington régime, in the sense that a stable return could be expected by holders of their stock, or even in the sense that the selling price of their shares remained reasonably uniform or ever reached a quotation in the neighborhood of par. Central Pacific stock sold at 34 in January, 1885. It rose to 51 in 1886, fluctuated principally between 26½ and 42 during the years from 1887 to 1892, and then proceeded to fall in value until in the spring of 1897 it was quoted on the New York Stock Exchange at the nominal figure of 7⅛ per share. The stock was ordinarily not traded in to any extent probably because so much of it was held abroad.