Steam trawlers and drifters are much more expensive than smacks or sailing drifters. They can only be berthed and handled satisfactorily in harbours that are equipped for the unloading and dispatching of large quantities of fish. From the very beginning these steamers were owned by large limited companies rather than by individuals, and the industry has tended to become more and more centralized at certain large ports, for example, Aberdeen, Hull, Grimsby, Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Milford Haven, and Fleetwood. The rise and development of many of these ports, for example, Aberdeen and Fleetwood, has been in direct response to the demands made upon them by the new steam fishing industry. The introduction of steam fishing made longer voyages possible, and led to the development of new fishing grounds. Steam trawlers from British ports now fish as far north as Iceland and the White Sea, as far west as Newfoundland, and as far south as Morocco, making voyages of many week’s duration. The re-organization of the fishing industry led to specialization amongst the fishermen themselves. The old sailing fisherman was essentially an all-round man. He was equally expert at lining, drifting and trawling. The skipper of a steamer, however, is a specialist; he is either a liner-, a drifter-, or a trawler-man. Generally, also, he keeps to a given region—Iceland, the White Sea, the North of Scotland, the North Sea, or the Bay of Biscay. In the three years preceding the war (1911 to 1914) the development of the steam fishing industry had become almost stationary. This was probably due in part to over-capitalization, resulting in lower profits. It was feared also that the greatly increased efficiency of the steam trawlers tended to produce a condition of over-fishing in certain areas, with the result that catches obtained in those areas progressively diminished; for example, the average catch per boat per day in the North Sea during three successive periods was as follows— 1903 to 1906 17·2 cwts. 1907 to 1910 16·7 „ 1911 to 1913 15·3 „ The fishermen became alarmed and development was arrested. This tendency to over-fish certain grounds has been effectively checked during the war by the almost complete cessation of offshore fishing. There is thus every probability that such grounds have now recovered, and further that, in many cases, grounds such as the Dogger Bank, that had become almost depopulated, will have become restocked.