Decline
Joyce became embittered and increasingly turned to alcoholism whilst politically his vision of a British National Socialism gave way to a more direct copy of German Nazism, with Chesterton stating that he started ending NSL meetings by shouting "Seig Heil". By 1939 the NSL had been re-registered as a drinking club rather than a political party and one of the group's final meetings in May 1939 ended in chaos as Joyce punched a heckler after the crowd had turned on him for his overtly pro-German speech. On 25 August he handed control of the NSL over to MacNab instructing him that it was his duty to dissolve the movement, which by that time had only 40 registered members. Joyce would depart for Germany just after this meeting and the NSL was wound up.
Towards the end of the Second World War some NSL members regrouped in the Constitution Research Association under Major Harry Edmonds although this initiative had no impact and quickly disappeared.
Read more about this topic: National Socialist League
Famous quotes containing the word decline:
“Reckoned physiologically, everything ugly weakens and afflicts man. It recalls decay, danger, impotence; he actually suffers a loss of energy in its presence. The effect of the ugly can be measured with a dynamometer. Whenever man feels in any way depressed, he senses the proximity of something “ugly.” His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride—they decline with the ugly, they increase with the beautiful.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“We can recognize the dawn and the decline of love by the uneasiness we feel when alone together.”
—Jean De La Bruyère (1645–1696)
“Families suffered badly under industrialization, but they survived, and the lives of men, women, and children improved. Children, once marginal and exploited figures, have moved to a position of greater protection and respect,... The historic decline in the overall death rates for children is an astonishing social fact, notwithstanding the disgraceful infant mortality figures for the poor and minorities. Like the decline in death from childbirth for women, this is a stunning achievement.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)