Sicilian monopoly

After a century of monopolistic bliss, le roi du sol of Sicily had unwittingly degraded into a defenseless monarch awaiting a palace coup d etat. Frasch was more than willing to oblige. He, not Florio, became known as the Sulfur King. Williams Haynes described the pitfalls of the Sicilian monopoly (The Stone That Burns, p. 77) ... 

The inffastmcture system in Sicily was disastrous. The basic problem was the separation between ownership, operations and marketing. There was no system but a bunch of independent factions, each taking care of their own selfish interests. The end result was that there was no incentive for anyone to make investments into the business. Thus, the industry remained primitive and backward. Worsening the situation, the economy of Sicily became more and more dependent on the sorrowful mines, both for emplo5mient and income. On the rare occasions when attempts to modernize the industry and improve efficiency (i.e., job losses) were proposed, they were met with violent demonstrations and strong resistance from local residents and political leaders. This Sicilian sulfur pit trapped the industry, and the island economy, in a state of mediocrity. When serious competition later evolved and their monopoly was broken, only government intervention kept the obsolete industry afloat. 

Ferdinand was willing to offend the greatest sea power that the world had ever seen over sulfur. With this decree, the government had frozen out the British merchants in Sicily and placed sulfur imder allocation and price-controls. Since the great production ofsulfur is the cause of every calamity in Sicily was it not the duty of government to protect its people The official explanation for the agreement was to prevent depletion of the sulfur reserves and to provide reasonable return to the poor Sicilians. In a further weak attempt to dampen the impact of the document, the term monopoly was deliberately avoided. Not everyone had to sell through TAC, but, if they did not, they had to pay TAC 2 ducats per cantar ( 18 per tonne). Such penalties prevented any real competition to TAC. Thus TAC was a monopoly in all aspects but name only. 

For 150 years this Sicilian industry had a virtual monopoly on the world supply of brimstone... Theoretically at least, it should have controlled the market to the great profit of the... 

Sulphuric acid was produced by the lead chamber process, originally from Sicilian sulphur, then from the cheaper pyrites. As the demand for sulphuric acid grew, Montecatini Mining Co. Limited (founded in 1888, and the forerunner of the present Montecatini Company) increased pyrites mining at the Boccheggiano field in Tuscany. In 1910 it acquired a monopoly over pyrites in Italy. Sulphur dioxide was produced, at first in Maletra, and then in Herreschoff or Kauihiann kilns. 

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