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<H1 class=headline>Harper returns archival document to Australia</H1>
<H4 class=lastupdated>Last Updated: Tuesday, September 11, 2007 | 9:55 AM ET
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<H5 class=byline><A href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/credit.html">CBC News</A>
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<P>Prime Minister Stephen Harper has presented a 200-year old playbill — the
oldest surviving document ever printed in Australia — to his Australian
counterpart.</P>
<P>Harper turned over the document, a playbill that includes details from a
Sydney performance on July 30, 1796, to Australian Prime Minister John
Howard at an official lunch Tuesday afternoon.</P>
<P>"Researchers are still trying to find out how this precious artifact ended up
in our library of Parliament, but it is now here where it belongs," Harper
said.</P>
<P>"I'm proud to return it to its rightful owners on this auspicious historic
day when we're renewing bonds of friendship, celebrating our mutual
accomplishments and vowing to work together for a better world."</P>
<P>The playbill, which advertises a performance of Nicholas Rowe's <EM>The
Tragedy of Jane Shore</EM>, was created on Australia's first press by its first
government printer.</P>
<P>Archive officials point to the document's importance as an indicator of
Australia's growing cultural community and as a milestone of the former British
colony's capability to print.</P>
<DIV id=advert300x250>
<DIV class=skipadvert id=skipadvert style="DISPLAY: block">The document was
recently discovered in the files of Library in Archives Canada. The agency found
the document in a scrapbook from its collection a few months ago.</DIV></DIV>
<P>Prior to Tuesday's return, the oldest Australian-printed documents in the
country's national archives had dated to November 1796.</P>
<P>The gift highlights the strong bond, warmth and friendship between the two
countries, Warwick Cathro of the Australian National Library told the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation.</P>
<P>"It also demonstrates the commitment we have to preserving the often fragile
documents that mark the milestones in our cultural
development."</P></DIV></DIV></FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff> ________________________________________________________________________<BR>"Those
who have an orphan's sense of history love history."--Anna in Ondaatje's
Divisadero<BR>_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________<BR>"La
Pocha Nostra is a virtual maquiladora [. . . ] that produces brand-new
metaphors, symbols, images, and words to explain the complexities of our times.
The Spanglish neologism Pocha Nostra translates as either 'our impurities' or
'the cartel of cultural bastards.' We love this poetic ambiguity. It reveals an
attitude toward art and society: 'Crossracial, poly-gendered, experi-mental, ¿y
qué?' " --Guilllermo
Gómez-Peña.<BR>___________________________________________________________________________________________________<BR>Denis
Salter<BR>Professor of Theatre<BR>McGill
University<BR>________</FONT></STRONG></DIV></BODY></HTML>