won office in New South Wales. A tariff on imported iron was applied by George Dibb's Protectionist government in New South Wales, between 1893 and when it was abolished by the incoming Free Trade government of George Reid in 1895. The tariff had encouraged Sandford to further expand his plant and its abolition was a crucial blow. It threatened the viability of Sandford's new sheet mill and galvanizing plant, which made galvanized corrugated iron sheets. Largely as a result of this experience, Sandford became an implacable opponent of Reid, and stood unsuccessfully, in 1896, as the protectionist candidate for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of Hartley. Free traders were not opposed to a local iron and steel industry; their view was that it could come about, without a protective tariff. The N.S.W Government had offered a large contract for locally made steel rails. A leading free trade businessman and politician, Joseph Mitchell—like Sandford, a strong and tireless advocate for a local iron and steel industry—won the contract, in 1897, but died before he could build his planned large iron and steel works near Wallerawang. Sandford had not tendered; his view was that, without protection, local industry could not compete. Another company G & C Hoskins—owned by brothers George and Charles Hoskins—did tender, unsuccessfully. In 1899, Sandford attempted to interest his friend Charles Hoskins in buying the Eskbank works but the offer was declined. Federation, first steel, expansion, Bonus Bill, and Arbitration Court (1901—1904) With Federation, in 1901, tariffs and duties between the colonies were abolished and the matter of import protection came one for the new Commonwealth of Australia to decide at a national level. With the election of a Protectionist minority government in the new Australian House of Representative, Sandford became optimistic that protection for the iron and steel industry would be forthcoming. In 1901, he set up William Sandford Limited as a public company—although Sandford himself owned nearly all the shares—and in that same year, Lithgow first produced steel, Although Sandford's Lithgow works was not the first to produce steel in Australia, it was the first to do so in large quantities by using the Siemens-Martin Open Hearth process. The feedstock was either scrap or imported pig iron, since no iron had been smelted in Australia since 1884, when the blast furnace at Lal Lal closed; the original (1875) Lithgow blast furnace had closed in 1882.