In December 1934, a secret ministerial committee met to discuss the situation caused by German rearmament. Between these two courses, there is no doubt about who is the smarter. [32] In February 1935, a summit in London between French Prime Minister Pierre Laval and British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald resulted in a Franco-English communiqué issued in London proposing discussions with the Germans on arms control, an air pact and security pacts for Eastern Europe and the nations along the Danube. [33] The origins of the agreement lie in the discussions that Sir John Simon and Chancellor Hitler had in Berlin on 25 and 26 March. Hitler proposed to his visitor, in defiance of the objections of Wilhelmstrasse, that Germany recognize, by a bilateral agreement, theuluity of Great Britain, while remaining satisfied with a maritime power equivalent to that of France (this was the expression used) or a third of the British. The führer was immediately warned that this proposal lacked coherence. The French fleet was half as large as the British fleet; As a result, the German navy could hardly get involved with that of France and still a third of the British navy. As a result, in his famous speech on May 21, Hitler more precisely expressed his claims: the German navy should be 35 percent smaller than the English, 15 percent smaller than the French. “The German government,” Hitler added, “voluntarily recognizes the utmost vital importance and, therefore, the justification for a dominant protection of the British Empire at sea, just as we ourselves are determined on the other side to do whatever is necessary to protect our existence and freedom on the continent. . . .