The plan of the Fitzgerald Committee followed, for the rest, the general lines earlier laid down by the Brice Committee. To retire all existing mortgage indebtedness it proposed to issue: First mortgage railway land grant 50-year 4 per cent gold bonds $100,000,000 4 per cent preferred stock 75,000,000 Common stock 61,000,000 The reasoning by which these sums were arrived at was as follows: The lowest net earnings the Union Pacific Railway had ever recorded had been those of 1894 $4,315,077 The committee planned to issue $100,000,000 4 per cent 50-year bonds, on which the interest would be 4,000,000 This would be all the company would have to pay in any one year. The average net earnings for the 10 years before 1894 had been $7,563,669 To the $100,000,000 bonds the committee proposed to add $75,000,000 preferred stock. The annual dividend on this would be 3,000,000 Payment on bonds and preferred stock together thus equalled the average earnings. Net earnings between 1885 and 1894 had gone in some years as high as $9,000,000 To the above bonds and stock the committee wished to add $61,000,000 common stock, on which dividends might be paid if it seemed advisable.