First, even the red had to be pinned down. On 10 August 1922, the Cabinet led by Zigfrīds Anna Meierovics adopted rules on Latvia’s state, merchant, official and institutional flags, as well as warship ensigns; V. Holcmanis and R. Kalniņš abstained. The rules set the state and merchant flag’s length-to-width ratio at 3:2, and for the first time in a legal text described the flag’s colour more precisely as “dark red (carmine).”

The Constitution had already named Latvia’s flag, but in postwar practice red-white-red flags of varying proportions and shades were still being used. The rules of 10 August 1922 were a technical intermediate step; on 9 January 1923 the Saeima further fixed the stripe ratio at 2:1:2 and specified the carmine-red tone.