On the whole, the scheme was to put the Atchison back to the condition of 1889, and to regain the margin of safety afforded by the income bonds. So far it was acceptable enough. Conservative officers had looked askance at the income bond conversion in 1892, and this was a simple acknowledgment of the mistake. The old difficulty as to future capital requirements, moreover, was evaded by a provision for an annual increment of second mortgage bonds to take precedence of the incomes. The notable part of the scheme was the anxious care of the bondholders to protect themselves. Since their bonds had been converted from income bonds less than two years before they could not claim a large allowance for the reconversion; but as a condition of their assent to this and to the introduction of a second mortgage for $35,000,000 before their lien they demanded not only a bonus of 5 per cent in the new incomes for their holdings, but the grant of voting power to the income bonds, a stock assessment of $12 per share, and the interposition of an additional $5,000,000 of bonds between the stock and the property of which it was nominally the possessor. “It is true,” said the _Railway Review_, “that the scheme contemplates the issue of income bonds which shall be given to assenting stockholders at par in return for the cash assessment, but it is a little difficult to see wherein such bonds are of very much more value than the stock of the company except that they are not subject to assessment.”[436] The reception of the plan was what might have been expected. On July 30, in London, the London bondholders’ committee met and passed a resolution in its favor. Having now secured, they said in substance, the substantial features for which they had contended, and although the plan was not altogether what they could have desired, they considered, after very prolonged and anxious negotiations, that a plan had been arrived at which was the best obtainable in the interests of bondholders.[437] Meanwhile meetings of stockholders were held in New York in protest. Resolutions were adopted condemning the plan, and a stockholders’ committee was chosen.[438]