the government carried out significant austerity measures, such as a 10% reduction in the dole. During August 1931, the Cabinet struggled to produce budget amendments that were politically acceptable but proved unable to do so without causing mass resignations and a full-scale split in the party. The particular issue on which the split occurred was the vote of the cabinet after much discussion to reduce benefit paid to unemployed people under the National Assistance scheme. The Cabinet was unable to reach an agreement on this controversial issue, with nine members opposing the reduction in the dole and eleven supporting it, and on 24 August 1931 the government formally resigned. The Second Labour Government was succeeded by the First National Ministry, also headed by Ramsay MacDonald and made up of members of Labour, the Conservatives and Liberals, calling itself a National Government. Viewed by many Labour supporters as a traitor, Macdonald was subsequently expelled from the Labour Party, and remained a hated figure within the Labour Party for many years thereafter, despite his great services to his party earlier in his life. The circumstances surrounding the downfall of the Second Labour Government, together with its replacement by the National Government and its failure to develop a coherent economic strategy for dealing with the effects of the Great Depression, remained controversial amongst historians for many years. Cabinet June 1929 – August 1931 Ramsay MacDonald – Prime Minister and Leader of the House of Commons Lord Sankey – Lord Chancellor Lord Parmoor – Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Lords J. H. Thomas – Lord Privy Seal Philip Snowden – Chancellor of the Exchequer J. R. Clynes – Home Secretary Arthur Henderson – Foreign Secretary Lord Passfield – Secretary of State for the Colonies and Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs Thomas Shaw- Secretary of State for War William Wedgwood Benn – Secretary of State for India Lord Thomson – Secretary of State for Air William Adamson – Secretary of State for Scotland A. V. Alexander – First Lord of the Admiralty William Graham – President of the Board of Trade Sir Charles Philips Trevelyan – President of the Board of Education Noel Buxton – Minister of Agriculture Margaret Bondfield – Minister of Labour Arthur Greenwood – Minister of Health George Lansbury – First Commissioner of Works Changes June 1930 – J.H. Thomas succeeds Lord Passfield as Dominions