Trust problems and an ‘ameliorating principle’ to invoke when trustees get it wrong
Abstract
Trusts & Trustees, Vol. 17, No. 2, March 2011, pp. 76â78 Editorial Trust problems and an âameliorating principleâ to invoke when trustees get it wrong T ony Molloy QC* and T oby Grahamy Former Roman Catholic Chaplain at Oxford, Monsignor Ronald Knox (d 1957) liked writing limericks. One of his best was triggered by the doctrine of the 18th-century Bishop of Cloyne, Bishop Berkeley, that âto be is to be perceivedâ. Knox wrote: There once was a man who said: âGod Must think it exceedingly odd If he finds that this tree Continues to be When there is no one about in the Quad.â A response by an anonymous correspondent (perhaps Knox himself, who was not above that sort of thing?1) is equally famous: Dear Sir, your astonishmentâs odd; I am always about in the quad; And thatâs why the tree Will continue to be Since observed by yours faithfully, God. Metaphysics is all very well for the Monsignori. It is less fun for parties to commercial arrangements who discover that, although it had quite escaped their perception, there was a trust in existence with unwelcome consequences for them. This was the situation in which the respondent in