48 BRITISH SEA-FISHERIES 



process of 'fleeting/ as it is called, at first confined to 

 the sailing-smacks, is still used by the large Hull 

 fleets of steam-trawlers which provide Billingsgate 

 and more recently, Hull, itself with daily supplies of 

 trawled fish fresh from the fishing-grounds. There 

 has also been a great growth in dock and other 

 accommodation. 



With the tendency to use larger vessels and more 

 complex machinery came the tendency to form com- 

 panies and syndicates. The fisherman ceased to own 

 his boat, and now retains at best a share in it. The 

 increase in size of both the vessel and the gear 

 necessitates increased intricacy in the operations of 

 fishing and increased specialization on the part of the 

 hands. The old fishing community, whose fathers 

 and grandfathers have been fishers, is disappearing 

 before the advance of modern economic forces. The 

 fishing - village is turning into the cheap seaside 

 resort. 



The scene of operations of the North Sea fisherman 

 is by no means limited to the area in the map over 

 which the two words wander. Roughly, for purposes 

 of definition, we may say that a North Sea fisherman 

 is one who lands his fish at an eastern port. Should 

 he do so at a southern or western port, even though 

 he hail from Lowestoft or Scarborough, he tempo- 

 rarily ceases, for our purpose, to be a North Sea 

 fisherman. The North Sea codmen work along the 

 Orkneys, the Shetland and Far5e Islands, Rockall and 

 Iceland. The fishing-grounds of East Coast trawlers 

 now range from Iceland and the White Sea to the 

 coasts of Portugal and Morocco. Boats have gradually 

 made their way along the Continental coasts on the 

 eastern side of the North Sea, opening up, about the 

 year 1868, the grounds to the north of the Horn reef 

 off the Danish coast. In this direction, as in the 

 Icelandic grounds, the pioneers have been the codmen 



