The United Nations and Switzerland

M AKING the UNO Work! There is assuredly no more important task facing contemporary statesmanship. But what can neutral Switzerland be expected to contribute to the solution of any of the many problems it implies, and why of all people should the views of any Swiss be sought and even considered in this connection? I shall not indeed have the effrontery to tell you how a Swiss thinks the U.N. should be made to work and what place should be allotted to the great powers in that enterprise. Rather will I attempt, in all modesty of spirit, to show, first, how I understand the problem of great and small powers was solved at the hands of the drafters of the San Francisco Charter; secondly, why that solution cannot be considered entirely satisfactory in countries like Switzerland, which, although weak, look back upon a long tradition both of national independence and of international co-operation; and, thirdly and finally, along what general lines that double ideal of national freedom and of world security might perhaps be more fully realized.