While helping to add these new burdens to the post-office administration, Mr. Taft directed his attention to the urgent necessity for more businesslike methods on the part of the national administration in general, and, on his recommendation, Congress appropriated in 1910 $100,000 "to enable the President to inquire into the methods of transacting the public business of the Executive Department and other government establishments, and to recommend to Congress such legislation as may be necessary." A board of experts, known as the Economy and Efficiency Commission, was thereupon appointed, and it set to work examining the several branches of administration with a view to discovering wasteful and obsolete methods in use and recommending changes and practices which would result in saving money and producing better results. Among other things, the Commission undertook an examination of the problem of a national budget along lines followed by the best European governments, and it suggested the abandonment of the time-honored "log-rolling" process of making appropriations, in favor of a consistent, consolidated, and businesslike budget based upon national needs and not the demands of localities for Federal "improvements," regardless of their utility. Although he was sharply attacked by the advocates of conservation for appointing and supporting as Secretary of the Interior, Mr. R. A. Ballinger, who was charged with favoring certain large corporations seeking public land grants, Mr. Taft devoted no little attention to the problem of conserving the natural resources. In 1910, Congress enacted two important laws bearing on the subject. By a measure approved June 22, it provided for agricultural entries on coal lands and the separation of the surface from the mineral rights in such lands. By another law, approved three days later, Congress made provision for the withdrawal of certain lands for water-power sites, irrigation, classification of lands, and other public purposes. These laws settled some questions of legality which had been raised with reference to earlier executive action in withdrawing lands from entry and gave the President definite authority to control important aspects of conservation.