The committee first asked for a continuation of the existing duties until the thirtieth day of the following June, in order to give proper time to mature the bill, which request was voted by both houses of Congress; and on March 20th, Mr. Lowndes announced that he was prepared to report the draft of the new Act. The measure contained virtually the continuation of the war {10} tariff as the permanent rule and policy in time of peace. It was now manifestly a protective tariff, and it was intended to be such. Mr. Ingham of the committee said, at the beginning of the debate upon it, that "its great primary object was to make such a modification of duties upon the various articles of importation as would give the necessary and proper protection and support to the agriculture, manufactures, and commerce of the country." He went so far as to say that revenue considerations ought not to have any influence in the decision of the House upon the committee's propositions. [Sidenote: The character of the Tariff Bill.] It is entirely evident, however, that the committee did not regard the bill as proposing advantages for the manufacturers only, or as having for its principal aim the increase of the wages of the employees in the manufacturing establishments, but considered it a great national measure, a measure necessary to the industrial independence of the country. It is also evident that the bill was not thought by anybody to rest upon a perfect and permanent principle. Mr. Clay himself said of it, "that the object of protecting manufacturers was, that we might eventually get articles of necessity made as cheap at home as they could be imported, and thereby to produce an independence of foreign countries;" that "in three years we could judge of the ability of our establishments to furnish those articles as cheap as they were obtained from abroad, and could then legislate with the lights of experience;" and that "he believed that three years would be sufficient to place our manufacturers on this desirable footing." [Sidenote: Mr. Calhoun's speech upon the Tariff Bill.]