This Canto contains a lot of talk about taxation, something the finance obsessed Pound often harps on.

But a little more interesting to me is something briefly touched on in the last couple of Cantos – what one might call the ‘Christian problem’ (though Pound consistently spells it ‘Xtian’ in this Chinese themed sections).

‘You Christers wanna have foot on two boats
                 and when them boats pull apart
you will d/n well git a wettin’ ‘ said a court mandarin
tellin’ ’em.