The Executive _Yüan_ was headed, as were all the others, by a _yüan_ president (_yüan-chang_), assisted by a vice-president, a secretary-general, and a director of political affairs. The yüan included all the major executive ministries, and the formal meeting of the Executive _Yüan_ was a meeting of the _Yüan_ officers, the heads of the ministries, and other directing officials. Such meetings took place once a week and corresponded to cabinet meetings in Western countries. The executive work of the entire government was performed by the Executive _Yüan_ and--through characteristic Chinese devices--the _Yüan_ Secretariat, divided into bureaus and committees, came to occupy a position of high strategic importance in Chinese government. All executive measures were funneled through the Secretariat, which cast them into proper form and determined whether or not they should be put on the _yüan_ agenda. It thus occupied a position not unlike that of the Grand Chancery and Grand Secretariat of the T'ang dynasty or of the Office of Transmissions under the Manchus. The Executive _Yüan_ combined within itself nine ministries: Interior (having charge of provincial and local government), Foreign Affairs, Military Affairs, Navy, Finance, Industries, Education, Communications, and Railways. Included were also a number of special commissions and agencies. The Legislative _Yüan_ consisted of a president, a vice-president, and eighty-six members, with an extensive administrative staff attached to it. The _yüan_ was divided, as are parliaments, into committees, but it was not a representative body, nor able to enact laws independently of the other divisions of government. Its president's powers were so wide as to make the cameral organization of the _yüan_ more apparent than real and to reduce the _yüan_ to a legislative drafting and research agency. The Judicial _Yüan_ was made up of four establishments: Supreme Court, Administrative Court, Commission for the Disciplinary Punishment of Public Functionaries (dealing with the government personnel below political rank), and the Ministry of Justice. The Examination _Yüan_, composed of two divisions (Examination Commission and Ministry of Personnel) gave expression to the Chinese tradition of separate examining agencies. Its function was to provide a merit system applicable to the whole government staff, except those relatively few positions which were political in nature. Because of the difficulty of developing elaborate machinery under unusual circumstances, the Examination _Yüan_ did not establish for itself a high standard of accomplishment. Finally, the Control _Yüan_ served as a chamber of censors entitled to bring suit against dishonest or treacherous officials, and maintained a central Ministry of Audit. In the last few years of the Nanking regime it brought over two hundred and fifty cases to bar each year.