Lord Bountiful

President Reagan, not known for his innovations in the field of foreign economic assistance but with a substantial reputation for fiscal frugality, has confounded his critics with a new aid package, worth $250 million, that would add Ireland to the Third World just when Gramm-Rudman was squeezing funds for Africa, Asia and Latin America.

That really isn’t altogether fair. His Irish aid package, apart from celebrating his family roots, is a diplomatic signal of support for the November Anglo-Irish agreement. The agreement is a modest but important first step toward reconciliation in that violence-torn island, and the agreement needs all the support that it can get--witness the incredibly irresponsible demonstrations of opposition led in recent days by Northern Ireland’s militant Protestants.

But there are better ways to encourage statesmanship than playing Lord Bountiful. U.S. foreign economic assistance has already been reduced to an unacceptably low level as the President has shifted more and more to arms and military-related assistance. Even as Reagan speaks of a five-year Irish aid program at $50 million a year, he has proposed cutting the worldwide contribution to the immensely effective United Nations Children’s Program from $46 million down to $34 million a year. The priorities of need are as skewed as his Third World geography.