The combined companies were unable to earn their fixed charges: the continuation of the struggle to do so was sure to mean, as it had in the past, merely a piling up of the floating debt. The coupon-funding scheme of 1877 had shown the inevitable result of temporary measures of relief; and though business in 1880 was rapidly improving, there was need for a radical reduction in the burden resting upon the company. Pending action, a bill for foreclosure was introduced under the general mortgage of 1874.[165] A valuation of the Reading coal properties, to which reference has already been made, was started. It was entrusted at first to Mr. S. B. Whitney, chief engineer of the Coal & Iron Company, and to Mr. Frank Carver, the land agent; but was later given over to Mr. Joseph S. Harris, chief engineer of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company, in order to have the opinion of an unprejudiced expert.[166] The first suggestion for a plan of reorganization came from England. The consolidated mortgage, prior to the general mortgage, was to be foreclosed; general mortgage bonds were to be deprived of their right to sue or to foreclose; all unsecured bonds and junior mortgages were to be exchanged for preferred stock; and a $15 assessment was to be levied upon the stock, for which collateral trust 7 per cent bonds were to be given. This assessment was relied on to pay off the floating debt, and the new company was to start free, with but $33,564,000 of mortgage indebtedness.[167] This plan was a step in the right direction. It recognized the validity of prior liens, followed a sound principle in providing for the floating debt by assessments upon the stock, and relieved the company from the likelihood of a future failure by its treatment of the general mortgage bonds; but it was weak in that it reduced the general mortgage to the anomalous position of a bond entitled to a fixed return without the power to enforce it. Stockholders, moreover, objected strenuously to the assessment, maintaining that business conditions were now such as to make milder measures sufficient. In October, 1880, Mr. J. W. Jones, formerly vice-president of the Reading Company, urged that an assessment on the stock was not necessary, and proposed the following: (1) To convert the income, debenture, and convertible bonds and scrip into second preferred stock bearing 5 per cent interest if earned; (2) To issue $15,000,000 of first preferred stock, with which to retire the floating debt; (3) To scale the Coal Company mortgage bonds $200,000 per annum, which could possibly be done by consent of holders, if not, then by foreclosure.[168]