It will possibly be of further interest if mention is made of some of the points to which attention was drawn.
Admiral Mayo, for instance, was informed that British naval policy was being directed in 1917, as during the remainder of the war, to exerting constant economic pressure upon the enemy with a view to forcing him to come to terms.

We also endeavoured to prevent the enemy from interfering with the conduct of the war by ourselves and our Allies.

In the effective pursuit of that policy the duty of the Navy involved: (1) The protection of the sea communications of the Allied armies and the protection of British and Allied trade.
(2) The prevention of enemy trade in order to interfere with his military operations and to exert economic pressure.
(3) Resistance to invasion and raids.
It was pointed out that the question at issue in each case was the control of sea communications, and in order to attain that control permanently and completely the enemy's naval forces both above and below water had to be destroyed or effectually masked.

As the weaker German Fleet not unnaturally refused decisive action and as its _destruction_ had hitherto not been achieved, we had adopted a policy of guarding an area between our vital communications and the enemy's ports, and of guarding the areas through which the trade and transports passed; these were the only methods of frustrating attacks made either by surface vessels or by submarines which succeeded in reaching open waters.

It was pointed out that a combination of these two methods had been in force during the wars of the eighteenth century, blockades being combined with the convoy system and the patrol of local areas by frigates, etc.
History, in fact, was repeating itself.
We mentioned that a close blockade of the German North Sea and Baltic ports presented insuperable difficulties under the conditions of modern warfare, and the alternative of controlling the Dover and Norway-Scotland exits to the North Sea had been adopted.