 The British people are meeting their problems with a grim program of austerity. Every element of their economy is keyed to a program of industrial expansion, for Great Britain must export or die. Only out of the profits of their manufacturers can the British pay for the food and raw materials which they must import. Moreover, their only hope for attaining a balanced economy is in the building up of their industries. To achieve this, they need help. That's where the Marshall Plan comes in. Denmark, on the other hand, is a food exporting country. But she must import grain and fertilizer if she is to produce a sizable amount of food for export. She must also import other essential products for her home industries. Through the machinery of the Marshall Plan, imports and exports between the participating European nations will be subject to allocation on the basis of need. The margin of requirements that cannot be fulfilled in this way will be supplied from available resources of the United States. Thus, Norway can export fish, also lumber and forest byproducts. She needs ships and other supplies. Sweden, though bearing no scars of the war and having a well-balanced economy, must nevertheless export and import to keep her economy balanced. The Marshall Plan makes the necessary credit available to move such stabilizing trade. Belgium, too, is in rather good shape, but she needs new machinery for her industrial plants and also for her coal mines. The old machinery is inefficient. Synthetic fertilizer is badly needed. But given these basic economic aids, she can pull more than her weight in the European reconstruction program. The Netherlands, before the war, was a great trading nation. With her shipping services and her colonial products, she held a highly important place in world commerce. Today, with her rich colonial trade in the East Indies disrupted, she must adjust her economy and depend more on what she can get out of her own soil and her own industries. France will be able to step up her food production tremendously when she modernizes her agricultural methods. Her industries, too, need to be modernized. But the greatest need of her industries is for coal. Coal from the Tsar region and from western Germany and new transportation equipment are the two vital elements in the economic rehabilitation of France. Political ferment always goes hand in hand with economic troubles. It is hoped that through the workings of the Marshall Plan, politics in France will move away from the dangers of extremism and begin to function with rational give and take. For Italy, we can write the same prescription, modernization of agriculture and industry, and the same hope that when everybody is eating and working, the number of political extremists will be considerably reduced. In Austria, the Soviet Union's exorbitant reparations demands have so far deadlocked all negotiations for a treaty. A treaty would give the Austrian government the necessary power and freedom to unify the country and take part effectively in a European recovery program. Meanwhile, Austria remains economically crippled. Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Portugal are among the 16 countries which believe that cooperation among free nations leads away from war. Though tiny countries, each can play a strategic role in the overall task of building a solvent economy for Europe. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Albania have become outright satellites of Russia and all stand behind the same iron curtain. We don't know what's cooking there, not cooperation with the rest of Europe. We're sure of that. In Greece, there is civil war to add to the country's misery. Evidence found on captured communist guerrillas proves conclusively that they are receiving aid from Russian satellites. American aid to the government of Greece is intended, frankly, to halt this drive of communist expansion against a helpless nation. It is our hope that the United Nations Security Council will ultimately be empowered to act in this controversy in a manner that will permit the Greek people to determine freely their own political future. But Greece is a highly strategic area in the program of communist expansion. For if Greece becomes a satellite of the Soviet Union, Turkey will be outflanked. Domination of Turkey is an age-old dream of the Russians. For it would mean control of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, warm water gateways to every sea lane in the world, and a gateway into the Black Sea that the Russians might want to close to certain powers upon occasion. Does the world seem all black with the overlapping shadows of suspicion, animosity, and clashing interests? Yes, World War II is having a long aftermath of misery. There are still hundreds of thousands of displaced persons in dreary camps, pitiful symbols of man's inhumanity to man. Nevertheless, here and there, bits of progress are being made in the long process of putting the world together again. Take Trieste, for example. Trieste, the most bitter point of dispute between Yugoslavia and Italy, has been declared a free territory by the United Nations, who neither Italy nor Yugoslavia is quite happy about the compromise, but how happy would they be if they were slaughtering one another? In the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council, many problems on large and small issues have been brought up for discussion, debate, analysis, and solution. The large issues, for the most part, are still unresolved. But in the Economic and Social Council, where the less dramatic issues come up for handling, much solid constructive work has been done to coordinate the efforts and the resources of the 57 United Nations. Many practical solutions have been found for the everyday problems of international cooperation through such agencies as the World Health Organization, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Food and Agricultural Organization, the International Labor Organization, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, the International Children's Emergency Fund, and others dealing with technical questions of finance, communications, postal regulations, and international aviation. This work doesn't often make the page one headlines, but the fact that it is going on is a point of profound significance. All nations are touchy about their rights and powers. Suspicions are easily aroused. Aggressive tendencies are often cloaked under self-righteous demands for justice. Whether the United Nations organization will ultimately create a democratic world government is a moot question, but this much can be said with certainty. Cooperation among nations generates goodwill. With enough goodwill, there is no human problem which cannot be solved.