[Footnote 13: Adapted from the Examination _Yüan_, _Tang Chêng Chien Chih T'u-piao_, cited; various issues of _The Chinese Year Book_, Shanghai and Hong Kong; and [The China Information Committee] _An Outline of the Organization of the Kuomintang and the Chinese Government_, Chungking, 1940.] Minor agencies are thus attached directly to the Council of State, which also serves as a link and common formal superior to the five _Yüan_ and the Military Affairs Commission. Authority of the Council is directed primarily upon these agencies which, while minor, serve useful needs. The Offices of Military (_Tsan-chün Ch'u_) and of Civil Affairs (_Wên-kuan Ch'u_) are transmission and ceremonial agencies, charged with the formal correctness of state documents and ceremonies; the military office was originally designed to carry on more important functions, including an independent inspectorate of troops, but now seems to be restricted to matters of protocol. Chinese government has for centuries operated on the basis of a two-way current of written materials: memorials, petitions, and other communications come from the provinces and dominions to the metropolis; orders, laws and other commands flow outward in response.[14] [Footnote 14: For a description of this function in the T'ang dynasty, see des Rotours, Baron Robert, _La Traite des Examens_, Paris, 1932, _passim_; and see Fairbank, J. K., and Têng, S. Y., "Of the Types and Uses of Ch'ing Documents," _Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies_, Vol. 5, No. 1 (January 1940), particularly p. 5 _ff._, for the Manchu empire.] THE SUPREME NATIONAL DEFENSE COUNCIL | | President of the National Government