Those who set up a new government usually have to compromise between the ideas current at the time, their own traditions, and the conditions of the territory and people to be governed. Ideas are likely to have more influence on the form than the substance, and imported traditions soon disappear unless control remains external. For a time, a system of government may be affected by such ideas and traditions, but if it lasts it is because it has become adapted to the physical, social, and psychological conditions of the region where it operates. These conditions, it is true, may be gradually modified by a government guided by philosophical ideas or foreign traditions. Such influences are, indeed, the cause of progress, but a government can safely follow them only if it makes large concessions to local conditions. The government of Iraq well illustrates the interplay of these three influences. It is a compromise of Wilsonian ideas, British traditions, and Iraq conditions.

The theoretical basis of the Peace Conference of 1919 was expressed in President Wilson's fourteen points and subsequent addresses. This basis had been formally accepted by the Allies and Germany in the agreement of November 5, 1918, before the armistice, and so legally superseded all conflicting agreements, secret or otherwise, with respect to Germany. The Turkish and Austrian armistices, however, had been made earlier, and these states were not parties to the agreement of November 5. Thus, legally, the conference was not bound to apply these principles to them.

The Public Health Service, the Coast Guard, and (under very recent legislation) the Coast and Geodetic Survey constitute a special group of bureaus, distinguished by the fact that their heads are selected as a matter of rule from groups of higher subordinates who are originally admitted by non-competitive examinations and advanced under the closed systems of commissioned personnel peculiar to these services.

In the case of the surgeon general of the Public Health Service, the statutes say merely that he shall be appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate. A regulation of the service, however, provides that the surgeon general shall be selected from the commissioned medical officers above the rank of “passed assistant surgeon”—next to the lowest grade. The President presumably could override this regulation, and indeed an opinion of the Attorney General has indicated that his choice is not confined to the list of commissioned officers by any law relating to the service. In fact, however, the principle has been observed in the selection of the four surgeons general appointed since 1879. This system of selecting the heads of the service guarantees training and acquaintance with its problems, but—especially in view of the flexible type of assignments so characteristic of the Public Health Service and so useful in freshening a permanent personnel—the options open to the President and the Secretary of the Treasury are numerous enough to leave room for the possibility of a sort of administrative politics.

A comparatively recent development in British public administration has been the creation of advisory committees or consultative councils in connection with a number of government offices. It is probable that government officials have at times in the past held consultations with small groups of citizens without any formal organization or requirement. Temporary commissions and committees have also been set up from time to time including members of Parliament and private citizens. But the new tendency establishes such committees as a regular part of the machinery of public administration, and in some cases involves the official recognition and coöperation of professional and other voluntary organizations.

The Board of Education Act, 1899, authorized a consultative committee to represent universities and other bodies interested in education. This was first established by order in council of August 7, 1900, and somewhat modified in 1907. During the World War sittings of this committee were suspended. But a new committee was appointed by order in council on July 22, 1920, to consist of twenty-one members, the term of seven to expire every two years. Four of the members appointed were women.

The Trade Boards Act, 1909, provided for district trade committees, to be organized, at first under regulations issued by the Board of Trade, and later (1916) by the Minister of Labour.

The National Insurance Act, 1911, provided for insurance committees in every county and county borough; and the Pilotage Act, 1913, authorized the Board of Trade to appoint an advisory committee of pilots, shipowners, representatives of pilotage and dock and harbor authorities, and others interested or having special knowledge.