This chapter considers Craig's attempts to promote commercial activity. The Galashiels population, which was 1,545 in 1821, rose quickly in the following decade and it was said in 1825 that few towns in Scotland were ‘advancing more rapidly’, although this was before a financial crash the following year. Later came the very difficult year of 1829 which saw ‘numerous failures’ in Galashiels. There was then a boom thanks to the success of tweed products from 1830 onwards. During Craig's time as bailie, therefore, trade fluctuations created challenges, particularly in textiles where a transition to lighter products, made of finer wool not typical to the region, brought in its wake several local bankruptcies at the end of the 1820s.

Craig had his own youthful experience of commercial failure with the ill-fated Buckholmside Brewery. He had a banker's understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of local businesses. In a credit reference for a local building contractor in 1827, Elliot Anderson casually mentioned that most people ‘in that line are known to us in one way or other’. So were many weavers, artisans, millworkers and overseers all of whom might benefit from Craig's network of contacts.

Craig's correspondence tells us much about how local commerce operated and shows how useful his contacts might be. In October 1819, for instance, he wrote to the law agents Taylor & Gardner in Glasgow, mentioning that he had heard of the failure of the Glasgow merchant John Stewart. Stewart had recently visited the area and bought goods in Galashiels and Hawick, particularly from the Hawick yarn manufacturers. One such firm, Waldie, Pringle & Co., sold him £500 worth of goods on credit. Hearing of Stewart's failure, they sent people to Glasgow who, as Craig put it, ‘were so rash as carry off goods to a great extent from Stewart's premises on the ground that he was only their agent’. Craig asked his Glasgow colleagues to investigate, rightly noting that, unless there was a contract of agency, the Hawick firm had prejudiced Stewart's other creditors and rendered themselves vulnerable to a legal action.