wealth rather than of consumption. This led to confrontations with the "bourgeois" parties. Similarly, the reunification of SPD and USPD resulted in a move to the left of the new SPD. Arguments between SPD and DVP about economic issues like the eight-hour work day introduced in late 1918 (but opposed by the DVP) finally caused the coalition's end in November 1922. Recognizing a national emergency when the French seized the Ruhr and inflation spiraled out of control in 1923, Müller was ready to enter into a "Grand Coalition" led by Gustav Stresemann (August to November 1923). However, differences in economic and social policies strained relations between the SPD and the other members of the coalition. Müller did support the emergency measures taken after October 1923, but the biased way the Reich government dealt with the socialist provincial governments in Thuringia and Saxony on the one hand, and the right-wing regime in Bavaria on the other, caused the SPD to leave the coalition in November 1923. At the party convention in 1924, Müller said that the SPD's stance towards coalitions was less based on principles than on tactics. The goal was to supply a Reichstag majority for the foreign policy that the Social Democrats thought was right. Although they were in the opposition, the SPD supported a policy of reconciliation with the western powers (as exemplified by the Locarno Treaties and entry to the League of Nations). In late 1926, another "Grand Coalition" seemed likely, but was scuppered by intrigues from inside the Defense Ministry and by the right wing of the DVP. After 1928 In 1928, Prussian Ministerpräsident Otto Braun said that he was not interested in becoming Chancellor. When the SPD turned out to be the clear winner of the May 1928 elections, the Social Democrats thus designated Müller as Chancellor. However, the other parties proved reluctant to compromise and it took a personal intervention by Stresemann for a government to be formed on 28 June 1928. The coalition (of Social Democrats, Zentrum, DDP, and DVP) only managed to settle on a written agreement on the government's policies in spring 1929. In particular, domestic policy differences between SPD and DVP dominated the government's work. Its continued existence was mainly due to the mutual personal esteem between Müller and Foreign Minister Stresemann. Relations between the parties were strained by the arguments over construction of Panzerkreuzer A, during which the SPD