Some of the best work of the Conference was done in these commissions, and it is to be regretted that the system was not organized earlier and used more widely. Some matters were never referred to commissions, delicate questions like Fiume and Dalmatia and the Rhine frontier being reserved for the exclusive consideration of the Four. Problems of an intermediate sort were sent to special committees, extemporized and set to work at double speed. Such were the Saar valley and Alsace-Lorraine, referred to a committee of three, Messrs. Tardieu, Headlam-Morley, and Haskins. Not being an organized commission, this body had no secretariat. Economic and legal advisers might be present, but often there were only the three. This committee met for a certain period very steadily, sometimes twice a day. It reported unanimously the chapters of the treaty on the Saar and Alsace-Lorraine, and was present at the meetings of the Council of Four each time these questions came up. One naturally asks how far the recommendations of these commissions and special committees were followed in framing the final draft of the treaty. To this it is hard to give a general answer, for in the nature of the case there was no uniform policy. The printed minutes of the commissions will some day be public and can then be compared with the several clauses of the treaty. In general, the territorial commissions were thought of in the first instance as gatherers and sifters of evidence, rather than as framers of treaty articles, questions of policy being reserved for the ultimate consideration of the Council of Ten. As time went on, the commissions tended to acquire more responsibility and to throw their reports into the form of specific articles or sections of a treaty. These naturally required coördination with the work of other bodies, such as the commissions on finance, reparation, or waterways, and a general correlation of the territorial reports was attempted by a Central Territorial Commission of five. Some final suggestions were also made by the Drafting Commission. The reports of the commissions were, however, first made directly to the Ten or the Four or the Five, as the case might be. Each report had its place on the docket, and the members of the commission were then present, each at the elbow of his principal, to furnish any necessary explanations in his ear, but not to speak out. Later in the summer members of the commissions were allowed to take part in the discussions of the Council of Five.