Is it not obliged to go further, and pay for the positive gains that many of the owners would have reaped in the absence of the law? For example: a piece of land is worth one thousand dollars the day after the tax goes into effect, and that was exactly the price paid for it by the present owner; another piece has the same value, but was bought by the present owner for eight hundred dollars. While neither of these men suffer any loss on their investments, they are deprived of possible gains; for had the law not been enacted their holdings would be worth, say, eleven hundred dollars. Nevertheless, they are no worse off in this respect than those persons who buy land after the increment tax goes into effect, and have no greater claim to compensation for abolished opportunities of positive gain. As we have seen above, the certain advantages of the measure to the community, the doubtful advantages to individuals of profiting by changes in price which do not represent labour, expense, or saving, show that the owners have no strict right to compensation. And it is still clearer that no landowner has a valid claim on account of value increases that would have taken place subsequent to the time that the measure was enacted. There is no way by which owners who would have held their land long enough to profit by these increments can be distinguished from owners who would not have availed themselves of this conjectural opportunity, nor any method by which the amount of such gains can be determined. On the other hand, it might be objected that, in reimbursing all owners who suffer the positive losses above described, the State is unduly generous; for if the law had not been enacted many of the reimbursed persons would have sold their holdings at a price insufficient to cover their losses. But these cannot be distinguished from those who would have sold at a remunerative price. Hence the State must compensate all or none. The former alternative is not only the more just all round, but in the long run the more expedient. In view of the social benefits of the increment tax, especially the removal of many of the inequities of the present taxing system, the State might sometimes be justified in making good only a part of the losses that we have been discussing. But this could probably occur only for administrative reasons, such as the difficulty of determining the persons entitled to and the amounts of compensation. It would not be justified merely to enable the State to profit at the expense of individuals. And, in any case, there seems to be no good reason why the unpaid losses should amount to more than a small fraction of the whole.