Mischief in Sacramento

The troubles in Northern Ireland are tragic enough. The people of Northern Ireland don’t need them to be made worse by the intervention of the California Legislature.

An Assembly committee heard testimony last Wednesday on a mischievous bill by Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) that purports to help the Catholic minority of Northern Ireland. It could ultimately end state pension fund investments in American companies that do not agree to abide by a set of anti-discrimination principles in Northern Ireland. Two dozen American firms, including General Motors and the Ford Motor Co., operate in Northern Ireland, where they employ about 11% of the work force.

Hayden’s bill, similar to laws passed by New York and Massachusetts, is part of a campaign by supporters of the Irish Republican Army to get such laws passed by the states and Congress.

Benevolent on its face, this campaign actually is, and is seen as such in Ireland, an attack on the 1985 Anglo-Irish agreement that gave the Republic of Ireland a formal consultative role in the governing of Northern Ireland. The two governments are seeking to promote the kind of anti-discriminative principles the Hayden bill embodies without its punitive provisions.

One of the great problems in Northern Ireland is unemployment, especially among young Catholics. Both Britain and Ireland are making strenuous efforts to increase investment and employment in Northern Ireland. Both fear that thrusting the Northern Ireland problem into domestic American politics will have the practical effect of discouraging U.S. investment of any sort.

That would not displease the more radical members of the IRA, who feed on Catholic discontent. But it would hurt the people of Northern Ireland, and it would harm the efforts of the great majority of Irish people, from the north and from the Republic, who want to bring peace to that land.