The Foreign Office has at its head a secretary of state, who, like the chief of every normal department, is supported by a parliamentary under-secretary and also by a permanent staff consisting of an under-secretary, several assistant under-secretaries--in this instance three--besides clerks and other permanent officials. For convenience of administration there are in the Foreign Office a number of departments, the business being distributed among them partly on a geographical basis, and partly according to the nature of the subject.[86:1] The office has, of course, charge of foreign relations, controlling for that purpose the diplomatic representatives and the consuls. The only odd thing about its duties is the fact that in addition to the ordinary functions of a foreign office it governs certain dependencies of the Crown. The expansion of European influence over the less favoured portions of the globe has produced among other new things the "protectorate," which involves, by a political fiction, an international as well as a philanthropic relation between the ruler and the ruled. The result is that protectorates not closely connected with existing colonies are administered by the Foreign Office. This has been true of a number of protectorates in Africa, and notably of Egypt, which is still nominally ruled by the Khedive under the suzerainty of the Turkish Sultan, but is practically governed by a British agent. [Sidenote: Position of the Foreign Secretary.] The conduct of the relations with foreign powers requires from its very nature a peculiar method of procedure. Much of the work of the Foreign Office consists, no doubt, in examining and pushing the private legal claims of British subjects, and to some extent work of that kind has a routine character. But apart from this there is comparatively little of the detailed administration--so common in other departments--which, involving merely the application of settled principles to particular cases, can be conducted by subordinates without consulting the political chief. Much of the correspondence with foreign powers may entail serious consequences, and hence must ordinarily be laid before the Secretary of State. The permanent officials play, therefore, a smaller part in the management of affairs than in most branches of the public service, a matter that will be discussed more fully in a subsequent chapter.[87:1] Moreover, the representatives at foreign courts are kept, by means of the telegraph, under more constant instructions than formerly, and it has become the habit in all countries to retain diplomatic negotiations very closely in the hands of the home government. Even the functions of foreign envoys as the eyes and ears of the state have declined in importance; and it has been observed that as gatherers of political information they have been largely superseded by the correspondents of the press.