as in the case of the Reading in 1896; and that when securities are to be sold the best of the available bond issues should be used and not the worst. The case of an assessment is very different. Securities may be sold to outsiders or to present securityholders. In the one event no pressure at all can be brought to bear; in the other only that of the indirect loss which the difficulties of the reorganizing company would involve.[696] An assessment, on the other hand, is levied solely on securityholders and is compulsory. Stockholders or bondholders who refuse to pay are ordinarily debarred from all participation in the reorganization, and lose all chance to recoup their losses from their share in subsequent prosperity. In return for the assessment some security is usually given, so that from one point of view an assessment and a sale resemble each other. But the element of compulsion appears in this: namely, that in the case of a sale the new securities are taken at the buyers’ valuation; but in the case of an assessment the company determines what it shall give for the cash paid in. Hence the usual compensation for an assessment is an equal nominal amount of preferred stock;—while that for the purchase money in a sale is a greater nominal amount in bonds. Either an assessment or a sale of securities may be fortified by a syndicate guarantee. In the one case the syndicate agrees to substitute itself for all non-assenting or defaulting stock- or junior bondholders; in the other it engages to take and dispose of the new securities offered, or such part of them as the company is unable to sell. The advantages of syndicate assistance we have already discussed.