Second, the Government might have exacted larger payments to the sinking fund, and have extended the debt at an unchanged rate of interest until it should be automatically discharged. This was the proposal of Mr. Hampton, Commissioner of Railroads, who suggested the amendment of the Thurman Act as follows: it should embrace all the United States bond-aided Pacific railroads; it should compel the contribution of 50 per cent of net earnings to a sinking fund instead of 25 per cent, and should extend the indebtedness to the Government until discharged as provided. If any company should abandon a portion of a subsidized line or divert its business from a subsidized to an unsubsidized line, that company should transfer the conditions which were attached to the former to the latter, in order to protect the interests of the United States Government.[502] The weak points in this scheme were many. Among them may be pointed out the fact that contributions to the sinking fund under the Thurman Act had been necessarily invested in government bonds, which, in view of the premium at which they were necessarily purchased, yielded a very small return. To double the contributions would have been to double the amount of the railroad’s funds sunk in but slightly remunerative investments; and the Government did not seem inclined to permit the company to adopt the only practicable alternative, that of investing its sinking fund in its own securities. Also, Mr. Hampton’s amendment would have continued to an enhanced degree the constant suspicious supervision of the company by the Government which had been, perhaps, the chief evil result of the Thurman Act.