The most cursory examination showed that the high protectionists had got much that they asked. Iron ore had been raised to 75 cents a ton after having been given 50 by tariff commission, by House, and by Senate. Pig-iron was restored to $6.72; steel rails, after having been given $15.68 in the Senate and $15.00 in House, were raised to $17.00. Mr. Beck attacked the bill violently, making a most imposing array of duties raised, but of course saying nothing of those lowered! At the same time he attacked Sherman for his part in raising duties. Sherman was not jubilant, however, over what he had done. Indeed, he was almost in despair. For if he had succeeded in the metal schedule, he had failed in the wool. The wool bill of 1867 had put compound duties on wool—10 cents a pound and 11 per cent ad valorem on all wools costing 32 or less cents a pound; 12 cents a pound and 10 per cent ad valorem on all costing over 32 cents. The ad valorems were dropped in the bill of ’83. The rate on carpet wool was also lowered. The duties on manufactured goods were lowered less on the whole than those on raw wool. In the bill of ’67 the manufacturer had been allowed a specific duty of 50 cents to compensate him for the duty on wool and dyestuffs; this was dropped to 35 cents in the bill of ’83; but on several grades of woollens the ad valorem duty was raised. It was raised indeed in every case where importations were large. On cheap goods the duties were so high there could be no competition; indeed they could have been lowered considerably and the situation remained unchanged. But wool-growers and wool manufacturers were both incensed at the bill. Senator Sherman took his failure much to heart and he refused to sign the conference report. It was a question if he would vote for the bill. But when the matter came to a test, as it did about midnight of Saturday, March 3, he voted yea. “I have always regretted,” Mr. Sherman wrote twelve years later, “that I did not defeat the bill, which I could have readily done by voting with the Democrats against the adoption of the conference report, which passed the Senate by the vote of yeas 32, nays 30. However, the propriety and necessity of a reduction of internal taxes proposed by the bill were so urgent that I did not feel justified in denying relief from burdensome and unnecessary taxes on account of provisions in the bill that I did not approve. With great reluctance I voted for it.”