In the employment of bonds and stock instead of a simple issue of bonds, the Erie managers adopted what experience has shown to be the best method of dealing with the complicated situation arising from a great railroad default. The use of securities on which return was optional side by side with those on which return was obligatory tended both to protect the railroad company when earnings were low, and to benefit the recipients of the new securities when earnings were high. As worked out, it gave to the second consols and funded coupons a less return in the one case, and an equal or greater return in the other, than did the plan of 1894, and to the income bonds, though it offered no chance of equal gain, it at least promised a minimum below which payments should not fall. It further made a far nicer recognition of the relative priorities of different classes of old bonds possible, and whereas the previous plan had made the same demands on, and had given the same return to the second consols, the funded coupon bonds of 1885, and the income bonds, the new plan gave, as has been pointed out, to the first 75 percent in general lien bonds and 55 per cent in first preferred stock; to the second, 100 per cent in general lien bonds, 10 per cent in first preferred, and 10 per cent in second preferred; and to the third, 40 per cent in general liens and 60 per cent in first preferred stock. Income, coupon, and consolidated bonds benefited alike from the assessment upon the stock, which laid the burden of raising cash upon the owners of the road, where it most properly fell. No species of security was given for the assessment, not even common stock, with which the managers might well have been generous; although it must be remembered that the sale of $15,000,000 prior lien bonds for cash was part of the reorganization plan. It may be remarked that since, on July 2, 1895, the common stock was being offered at 10⅝, with no sales, and the preferred at 22½, and since the chance for dividends which the new stock was to enjoy was most remote, it was perhaps well that the syndicate guarantee of the payment of assessments had been obtained. Fixed charges by the new plan were lower, as a result of the liberal use of stock in the exchanges and the cancellation of floating debt as above; while the terms under which the outstanding New York, Pennsylvania & Ohio bonds were retired were the most drastic part of the scheme. In all, the total mortgage indebtedness of the Erie Company and its leased or controlled lines of $234,680,180 for January, 1896, was reduced to $137,704,100 by June 30 of that year.[149]