whom wished to serve under the other. Hamilton led the party into its first election in 1938. He was unable to counter Labour's popular Prime Minister, Michael Joseph Savage effectively. Because of this, perceptions that he remained too much under the control of Coates and his lack of real support from his party colleagues, Hamilton failed to prevent Labour's re-election in 1938. In 1940, former Reform MP Sidney Holland replaced Hamilton. William Polson "acted effectively as Holland's deputy". One former Reform MP Bert Kyle resigned in 1942 in protest at the "autocratic" behaviour of Holland and the new party organisation. In the 1943 election, National reduced Labour's majority from 12 seats to four. In the 1946 election, National made further gains, but Labour was able to cling to a one-seat majority. However, in the 1949 election, thirteen years after the party's foundation, National won power after taking eight seats off Labour, and Holland became prime minister. First Government (1949–1957) Sidney Holland was finance minister as well as prime minister in the new government. In 1949 National had campaigned on "the private ownership of production, distribution and exchange". Once in power the new Holland Government proved decidedly administratively conservative, retaining, for instance, compulsory unionism and the welfare state set up by the previous Labour government. In 1951 the Waterfront Dispute broke out, lasting 151 days. The National government stepped into the conflict, acting in opposition to the maritime unions. Holland also used this opportunity to call the 1951 snap election. Campaigning on an anti-Communist platform and exploiting the Labour Opposition's apparent indecisiveness, National returned with an increased majority, gaining 54 parliamentary seats out of 80. In the 1954 election, National was elected to a third term, though losing some of its seats. Towards the end of his third term, however, Holland became increasingly ill, and stepped down from the leadership shortly before the general election in 1957. Keith Holyoake, the party's long-standing deputy leader, took Holland's place. Holyoake, however, had insufficient time to establish himself in the public mind as Prime Minister, and lost in the election later that year to Labour, then led by Walter Nash. Second Government (1960–1972) Nash's government became very unpopular as Labour acquired a reputation for poor economic management, and much of the public saw its 1958 Budget, known since as the "Black Budget", as miserly. After only one term in office, Labour suffered defeat at