It was realised by now that existing rural poverty arose from small farm sizes, yet the procedures and limits of the Acts also tended to keep farm sizes down. The aim had been to create "peasant proprietors" owning what were usually small farms. By definition the activists in the 1880s Land War period had been poorer and more desperate, and few came from larger prosperous farms. This remained a matter of policy debate for the rest of the Commission's existence; generally it continued to create new small units by breaking up larger units that had more commercial potential. Larger commercial farmers were characterised as "landlords" or "grazers" simply because they had more land than the average.