On the basis of the admitted need, Mr. Thurman, in behalf of the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate, made a series of concrete proposals. The essence of the Thurman plan was that the annual payments of the Pacific railroads for the eventual retirement of the government debt should be largely increased. It was contemplated that 5 per cent of the net earnings of these railroads, together with half of the sums due to the companies for government transportation, should continue to be applied to the retirement of the subsidy bonds. This annual appropriation Mr. Thurman estimated at $531,000. But it was now intended that in addition to this sum there should be retained by the government and credited to a sinking fund, the other half of the sums due to the companies for government transportation; proceeding still further, the Thurman bill provided that in case the whole of the government transportation accounts, added to the 5 per cent of net earnings, did not make a sum equal to 25 per cent of net earnings, then the Pacific railroads should pay into the sinking fund such sums not exceeding $1,200,000 for the Central Pacific and $850,000 for the Union Pacific, as would bring the companies’ payment up to 25 per cent. Textually, the section of the Thurman bill relating to the Central Pacific sinking fund read as follows: Sec. 4. That there shall be carried to the credit of the said fund, on the first day of February in each year, the one-half of the compensation for service hereinbefore named, rendered for the Government by said Central Pacific Railroad Company, not applied in liquidation of interest; and, in addition thereto, the said company shall, on said day in each year, pay into the Treasury, to the credit of said sinking fund the sum of one million, two hundred thousand dollars, or so much thereof as shall be necessary to make the five per centum of the net earnings of its said road payable to the United States under said act of eighteen hundred and sixty-two, and the whole sum earned by it as compensation for service rendered for the United States, together with the sum by this section required to be paid, amount in the aggregate to twenty-five per cent of the whole net earnings of said railroad company, ascertained and defined as hereinbefore provided, for the year ending on the thirty-first day of December next preceding.[531] Mr. Thurman estimated the total payments which the Central Pacific would have to make under his bill at $1,900,000 annually, or substantially more than the accruing 6 per cent on the subsidy loans.[532] In case earnings should be insufficient to meet interest charges on underlying first mortgage bonds after the deduction of 25 per cent, the Secretary of the Treasury was authorized to remit as much of the 25 per cent as might be necessary to avoid default. Disappointing Results