All this has the effect of concentrating the direction of foreign relations in the hands of the Secretary of State. At the same time he is singularly free from immediate parliamentary control. Diplomatic correspondence is ordinarily confidential, and it is usually a sufficient answer to any question in Parliament, touching foreign relations, to say that the information sought cannot be given without detriment to the public service. It follows that the presence of the minister in the House of Commons is less necessary than in the case of other departments; while his arduous duties make it hard for him to find the time required for attendance at the long sittings. These facts, coupled with the strange provision of law which permits only four of the five secretaries of state to sit there, resulted in placing peers at the head of the Foreign Office continuously from 1868 to 1905, the under-secretary alone representing the department in the popular chamber. But if the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is less under the direct control of Parliament than other ministers, he is more under the control of his colleagues. We have already seen that every important despatch ought to be submitted, before it is sent off, both to the Prime Minister and to the sovereign; and, as a rule, the telegrams, together with correspondence of peculiar interest, are also circulated among all the members of the cabinet.[88:1] In fact there is probably no department where the executive action of the minister is so constantly brought to the notice of his colleagues. [Sidenote: The Colonial Office.]