Also in 1901, he put into operation a new sheet mill. Sandford, confident that protection—under the Bonus Bill, an act of the new Australian Parliament—was imminent, went to England. He returned in June 1902, with news that he would raise £750,000 of British capital and float a new company, Australasian Iron and Steel Corporation Limited, and hosted an English visitor associated with these plans. He stated that "The intention of the new corporation is to extend the works. Their expansion will materially depend on the confirmation of the Bonus Bill by the Federal Senate, so far as it applies to iron made from Australian ores, and the confirmation of the tariff with respect to iron manufactures." However, his return to Australia coincided with the effective defeat of the Bonus Bill. Edmund Barton's Protectionist minority government relied upon the Labor Party to pass any legislation. Labor had combined with the opposition Free Trade Party—led by Sandford's Free Trade nemesis, George Reid—to amend the legislation in such a way that caused it to provide less protection than had been expected. Labor wanted a nationalised iron and steel industry and did not want to stimulate the further growth of a privately-owned one. Although Sandford was feted upon his return to Lithgow, his plan for a new and well-capitalised company to expand the Lithgow works was stymied. In 1903, Sandford had to close the sheet mills at Lithgow altogether but continued to make galvanized iron using imported sheets. Sandford had begun to face financial difficulties due to rising costs, uncertain markets and scarcity of material, and—in his own view—the absence of protection against import competition. He had contested the first federal election, in March 1901, as a Protectionist candidate for Parramatta, but was defeated by Joseph Cook. In 1903, he again ran for the federal parliament, this time against Free Trader Sydney Smith in Macquarie, but he was again unsuccessful. In 1904, William Sandford Limited settled two disputes with its employees in the N.S.W. Arbitration Court. State contract, blast furnace, and first integrated steelworks (1905—1907) As steamships came to replace sailing ships, cheap pig iron, in the form of ballast, was being imported less. On a steamship, pig iron would be carried as paid cargo. With a sizable local market, making iron in Australia was becoming more viable. Sandford and his manager William Thornley were confident in the future of the Lithgow works—provided it