The British ambassador to the United Nations, Sir Patrick Dean, last night suggested that the policy-making authority of countries participating in U.N. peace missions should be proportional to their financial contributions.

Speaking to the Harvard International Law Club in Harkness Commons, Sir Patrick said that "It should be possible to create new machinery whereby more account might be given to those who help make our peacekeeping operations possible by financial and manpower contributions."

The U.S. shares Britain's enthusiasm for the idea, Sir Patrick said, but as yet no definite proposals have been suggested to the Soviet Union. "I am not proposing any takeover of the big powers, but an encouragement to the smaller nations," he declared.

Solution Difficult

Turning to the current crisis in Cyprus, the subject of his talk, Sir Patrick said that "what we've learned is that if the need is really urgent, as it was here, the U.N. can rise to the task." Sir Patrick emphasized, however, that "true collective security may be a long way off."

The recent financial difficulties of the U.N. may lead to "other kinds of peace-keeping," the ambassador explained. "It may mean that peacekeeping will have to be kept on a modest scale." Sir Patrick cited the fact-finding mission and the special envoy as two methods which should be employed more often than they are now.

Evaluating the likelihood that U.N. mediation would produce an acceptable solution to the Cyprus crisis, Sir Patrick said that he was "hopeful" that Sakari S. Tuomioja of Finland, the U.N. mediator, would offer some solid suggestions "in six or seven weeks."

Sir Patrick declined to offer his own solution to the dispute. However, he doubted, due to the "deep-seated mistrust" between the Greek and Turkish Cypriotes, that "a simple doctrine of self-determination would work." He called partition the worst of the possible solutions which have been offered.

The new officers of the International Law Club, announced prior to the talk, are John V. Sorr, president; Elizabeth Hanford, vice-president; Eliot J. Halperin, secretary; and Robert D. Landon II, treasurer. All are second year Law students.