The Security Council resolutions of 25 August 1947 had set up (or at least foreshadowed) two UN bodies to assist with the Indonesian problem. Most immediately, noting that the Indonesian Republic had requested ‘a commission of observers’, the Council asked the countries that had ‘career consular representatives’ in Batavia to instruct themto prepare jointly for the information and guidance of the Security Council reports on the situation in the Republic of Indonesia following the resolution of the Council of 1 August 1947, such reports to cover the observance of the cease-fire orders and the conditions prevailing in areas under military occupation or from which armed forces now in occupation may be withdrawn by agreement between the parties. This group of consuls, representing Australia, Belgium, China, France, the United Kingdom and the United States, came to be known collectively as the Consular Commission. Their task was an immediate one: to report to the Council on the situation, and was to begin immediately.