Butter, Not Guns, for the Irish : Clinton-sponsored Washington conference puts the issue in exactly the right light

The vastness of the English-speaking world, though it may foster a special kind of insularity, has its advantages, and one of them was on display last week at the White House Conference on Trade and Investment and With Northern Ireland.

That Gerry Adams, head of the hyper-nationalist Northern Irish political party Sinn Fein, shook hands with Sir Patrick Mayhew, Britain’s Northern Ireland secretary, was only the most visible of many similar exchanges that would have been a good deal more difficult in London, Dublin or Belfast. Where but on some neutral turf could members of Ireland’s diplomatic corps mingle freely with members of Unionist parties that officially oppose closer relations between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland?

It needn’t have been Washington. It could have been Ontario or Canberra, but something, paradoxically, is gained when a meeting takes place where most people, most of thetime--the chambermaids, the table waiters, the taxi drivers--have no stake in any particular outcome. The Clinton Administration has sometimes helped, sometimes hindered progress toward peace in Northern Ireland. But by making its latest intervention a mustering of U.S. business executives open to investing in Ireland, the Administration guarantees itself a welcome not just from Britain and Ireland but also, freely or grudgingly, from all parties in Northern Ireland itself.

Ireland has a number of obvious attractions for U.S. investors: a highly educated, English-speaking work force; a fixed 10% corporate tax rate; sophisticated telephone and telecommunications systems, and ready access to all of Europe. The path upward for the economy of Northern Ireland and the adjacent northern counties of the Irish Republic, both crippled by the long years of civil conflict, clearly lies through economic integration on the island itself as well as with the rest of the British Isles and Europe. But U.S. development money can accelerate movement in that direction.

The sooner the peace process leads to genuine disarmament, the faster this economic development can proceed. Meanwhile, this White House conference serves notice equally to Adams and to the American friends of amity, if not unity, in Ireland that the path ahead requires the expertise of an investment counselor, not a gun runner.