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Sir Peter told the Pacific Congress about the difficult problem of clothes among the Polynesians. Early missionaries, shocked by their healthy nakedness, taught them to cover their shame with long, ugly Mother Hubbards. Now some of this teaching is wearing off. On certain islands, reported Sir Peter, the natives go naked on weekdays, wear their Mother Hubbards only for Sunday churchgoing. "They are in something of a quandary," he explained. "They have observed that the whites, who made them wear clothes, are wearing less & less themselves. 'Perhaps we were right about clothes in the first place,' the Polynesians say."