a liberal minority cabinet, which was preparing an important constitutional revision to solve the two most pressing political issues of the past three decades: suffrage and equal financing for religious schools. All parties were involved in the process, and in 1917, the changes were implemented. Then, the General League grew in power. In the 1918 election, held under proportional representation, the League became the largest party, and its alliance with the ARP and CHU won a considerable majority. For the first time in Dutch political history, a Catholic, Charles Ruijs de Beerenbrouck, became Prime Minister. That responsibility put considerable pressure on the party. In 1919, Van Groenendael was removed from the party ranks because the MP supported the independence of Dutch Limburg. In 1922 another Catholic party, Roman Catholic People's Party, was founded by former members of the General League and was oriented towards Catholic workers. In 1923, 10 Catholic MPs caused the fall of the second Ruijs de Beerenbrouck cabinet by voting against the budget of the Ministry for the Navy. Ruijs de Beerenbrouck continued with a new cabinet. In 1925, the orthodox Protestant MP Kersten caused the fall of the first Colijn cabinet. Kersten had proposed every year for the Dutch representative at the Holy See to be abolished. Each year, the conservative Protestant CHU, which was in government with the General League, had supported the proposal. Now, the socialist and liberal opposition supported the proposal as well, which was unacceptable for the Catholic ministers, and their departure caused the cabinet to fall. Those events and the pressure of governing accelerated the General League's change to a tightly-organised mass party. In 1926, it formed a new party, the Roman Catholic State Party, which was the continuation of the General League with a stronger organisation. Name The name "League" conveyed three things: its federative nature, as it was a federal league of caucuses, its Roman Catholic ideology, and its opposition to partisan politics – it was a general league. The long name was not abbreviated in an acronym, but just as General League. Before the foundation of the Roman Catholic State Party in 1926 the party was also generally known under that name. Ideology and issues The General League was a Catholic party, which explicitly based itself on the papal encyclical Rerum novarum. In this encyclical Pope Leo XIII expressed the principles of Catholic social teaching. It called for