oN -When one thinks of all the reasons why treaties may fail to fulfill their intended purposes, one may well wonder why nations continue to enter into then, Tt is said that the first known treaty was made about 3000 B. C. between the kings of Umma and Lagash in settlement of a boundary dispute. No one knows how many treaties have been entered into in the intervening 5000 years but it is undoubtedly a colossal figure. While the total has been liberally sprinkled with instances of bad faith and broken engagements, it is still truc that the great majority have been carried out by the parties in good order and have served their respective purposes reasonably well. Clearly there is nothing in this long _— vaio compels the conclusion that the treaty process is incapable of bearing the load which would be put upon it by an attempt to control atomic warfare by international action. Treaties are tools which will perform well under certain conditions and badly under others. If a favorable set of conditions can be coaxed into existence, there is no reason to dispair of finding a treaty structure that will withstand the strains which are likely to occur, It is true, nevertheless, that a limitation agreement would fall into the class of treaties which are subjected to the greatest strains, and which not infrequently give way under them. For one thing, the subject matter deals directly with the security of the state, and on such questions every state will, if it can, hold on to the final decision itself. That does not, of course, rule out the possibility of common action, since states are quite capable of appreciating the advantages of such action, but it does put an outside limit on the distance to which a state will go in achieving it. The greatest strain, of course, would come from the nature of the bomb itself, and the enormous advantage that would be gained by surreptitious vicla~ tion. So great would be the temptation to evade the treaty that governments would be extremely reluctant to put much faith in it if it rested on nothing more than the reciprocal promises of other states. bf Before divesting themselves f t NL io