Early career

Joseph Ruau was born in Paris on 5 June 1865. He was grandson of the mathematician Joseph Liouville and son of a director-general of the Mint. He obtained a doctorate in Law and joined the Toulouse bar as an attorney. He was elected municipal councilor and mayor of Aspet, Haute-Garonne, then general councilor for Aspet in the departmental assembly.^[1]

Ruau was elected to the legislature as deputy for Haute-Garonne in a byelection on 30 May 1897, and sat with the Radical Democrats. He was reelected in 1898, 1902, 1906 and for the last time in 1910. He was secretary of the Chamber twice, in 1898 and 1899, and rapporteur for the agriculture budget several times. As vice-president of the radical left he supported the governments of Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau and Émile Combes.^[1]

Minister of Agriculture

Ruau was appointed Minister of Agriculture on 24 February 1905 in the cabinet of Maurice Rouvier and retained this office in the cabinets of Ferdinand Sarrien, Georges Clemenceau and Aristide Briand until 2 November 1910.^[1] In 1906 he presented a law that organized long-term financing of agricultural cooperatives by the Crédit agricole banks. The cooperatives were defined as societies of people rather than of capital based on the principle of "one man, one vote" in which profits were shared. The state offered guarantees to the banks.^[2] Ruau issued a decree to regulate the organization and operation of horse racing. He proposed measures to assist farm laborers who had suffered work accidents and southern wine growers ruined by the fall in the price of wine that followed the losses due to phylloxera.^[3]

On 5 July 1908 Ruau spoke at the second national conference on mutual credit and agricultural cooperation at Blois. He pointed out that the state was promoting a rural, property-owning democracy. This was true, but he gave an exaggerated view of the benefits of recent legislation in promoting agricultural syndicates and mutual aid societies.^[4] He overstated the influence of his government in promoting rural cooperation, which had been developing for over a century but still had far to go.^[4] He supported the creation in 1910 of a radical federation of capitalist farmers of the Parisian Basin in competition to the very conservative Union Centrale des Syndicats des Agriculteurs de France.^[5]

Last years

Ruau suffered a physical and mental collapse due to the strain of office, and was placed in a nursing home in Ivry-sur-Seine in late 1910. He died there on 29 September 1923 at the age of 58.^[1]